It is nearly eight years since Melody Maker went under, subsumed into NME, its long-standing rival. In 2006 Smash Hits bowed to the inevitable and printed its last paper copy. Today the vultures are still circling the UK's remaining major music magazines as the internet chips away at their remaining fanbase.

The latest ABC figures make for uncomfortable reading. Circulation of Bauer's Kerrang fell 27.9 per cent year-on-year, with NME not far behind, shedding 17.4 per cent of its readers.

Next week Q, the Bauer-owned market leader, will effectively signal that the conventional music magazine is dead as it relaunches in a “lifestyle” format. Gone will be the traditional pattern of album reviews and band interviews, with sport, film and computer games filling large parts of the magazine. There's even a TV column.

Paul Rees, editor of Q, is unapologetic. “The magazine we've been putting out has not been good enough,” he says, leafing through proofs of the new edition, which has also ditched its traditional red, white and black colour scheme.

“It's not appealing to a big-enough group of people. We have drifted too close to being just another music magazine, and we've been losing readers. We've been a market leader for 22 years but there is so little reader loyalty these days. You've got to do more.”

More, until now, meant extending the brand beyond print. NME and Q both set up radio stations, with the former transforming its website into a portal that reported a 107 per cent rise in hits last year.

Future Publishing's titles, Metal Hammer and Classic Rock, have moved into live events, with the latter forming its own record label. Yet, that has not proved enough. Q's circulation dropped 13.1 per cent last year, to 113,000.

Chris Ingham, publisher of Future's music titles, blames the circulation falls on a “quest to become cool”. He says: “Q was meant to be dad rock. It wasn't meant to be cool. Bob Dylan, U2, REM, they're not cool, but they sell magazines. Q started chasing after anyone who was selling records, and it all became a little bit disconnected.”

In abandoning the tried-and-tested music magazine format, Q is taking a big gamble. “We need to move away from the mainstream and start acting like a leading magazine and be innovative and bold,” Mr Rees says.

“Q is for people who like music but like other things as well. It's like Top Gear. I know nothing about cars, but that is unmissable. They can take something that's about cars and put a different spin on it. We want to do that with music.”

Other non-musical features include “Q Heroes”, which kicks off with Barack Obama; a travel page; and a hefty dose of film. The first edition features an interview with Oliver Stone, with Martin Scorsese promised in the near future.

“He's a rock'n'roll film director,” Mr Rees says. “High School Musical and Sex and the City are not going to get reviews but the Coen brothers will. It's about what your audience is inter- ested in.”

The radicalism, though, does not immediately impress rivals. The chief executive of one the larger magazine groups is baffled. “The question is whether they have taken all the utility out of the magazines for the fans. So often the most important material is at the back of a title - surely, Q readers really do want the reviews to help them to decide what to do with their lives.”

It is unclear how far the Q lifestyle publication will sit with other Bauer titles. The first cover is classically rock'n'roll, with Angus Young, the guitarist with AC/DC, the band behind Highway to Hell, donning his school uniform for the first time in eight years. But it is no certainty that the coveted spot will remain a musical domain.

Mr Rees promises only not to put a film star on the cover in the first three new-look issues.

This implies that it is only a matter of time before actors go on the front of the new look Q - although that ought to be the domain of Empire, its Bauer stablemate. The film magazine had better watch out, or put musicians on its cover first.

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