Thanks to its zombie-like grip on a dwindling but loyal number of British indie schmindies, U.K. tabloidstitution the New Musical Express has yet to be shuttered, despite those three words that everyone in the publishing world just loooooves to hear: “steadily declining sales.” In fact, sales for the latter half of 2007 were apparently “the lowest ever” because British whiteys can now get ’round the clock updates on their favorite British whiteys (who can play guitar) for free anywhere there’s decent Wi-Fi. But the occasion of the NME’s august uh 56th birthday has sent the yearly crop of rose-colored doommongers onto the blogs and into broadsheets to fret over its imminent demise, but the folks at the NME insist they can keep the pulped-wood version rolling off the presses until the damn Blur reunion or the brandy-fueled Gallagher brothers incest scandal finally breaks.

The current NME weekly is, admittedly, a much calmer chameleon than during its punky, druggy peak. Packed with soundbites, gossip and promotional branding, it can read like a trainer-bra version of Heat magazine. But a residual fondness remains. Hearing reports of falling sales is like hearing that a cruel but brilliant uncle has been taken ill.

And yet, according to its publishers IPC, the veteran music rag is in rude health. Last week’s awards show earned their biggest TV audience so far on Channel 4. Next month, NME launches an American awards show and tour, with a radio channel due by the summer. Even with falling sales, IPC claims that the magazine remains “the heart of the brand” and still its most profitable element…

IPC has responded to NME’s poor circulation figures by announcing yet another revamp. But perhaps it is simply wrong to interpret poor sales as a crisis in this post-print age. Even if its weekly cousin loses readers, the magazine’s online presence continues to expand, recently surpassing the monthly benchmark of two million “unique users”. Pat Long insists that NME deserves credit as a pioneer of blogs, online news and web videos.

“The future will see more focus on that content being sold to third parties with the magazine used more as a focus to hold the different brand platforms together,” Long predicts. “The problem is it’s difficult to talk about things like brand platforms without imagining Nick Kent somewhere, sobbing.”

Well obviously. But hey, at least that means the other 300,000 words could once again be taken up by nostalgia-addled, aging punks (and music crits) kvetching about the good ol’ days and things being too “corporate” and the kids and their soulless social networks. Cuz, you know, without the U.K.’s bizarre fixation on the NME’s supposed golden age, this would have been a five paragraph item that could be summed up with the title “print pub goes online to survive.” (We can debate its “pioneer status” another day.) How come no American music critics write weepy daily paper paeans to personal hero John Leland every time Spin changes hands?

They Think It’s All Over For The NME [Times Online]