Cast your mind back to the first lockdown of last year. Mixmag made the decision to suspend publication of their print edition from April 2020. The claim they made at the time, amongst others, was “the idea of telling our audience to visit a shop during a period of high contagion seems irresponsible”.

Whilst this was true, questions existed at the time about the viability of Mixmag’s print edition. Circulation figures for Mixmag aren’t easy to come by – but I understand they are a long way from their peak in 2001, when each issue sold almost 110,000 copies.

Last June, they confirmed the magazine would return in 2021. But it’s now early November, and it appears like this promise will now not be delivered. Even if everything was in place, would relaunching a magazine just as winter was on its way be a sensible idea?

I spoke to a source who has been involved in the launch of a number of magazines and newspapers to see what he thought. He said “Logistically speaking, it’s the sort of operation that would take a few months to set up. You need staff first of all, which is a process which can take a while in itself. You’ll also need to prepare a dummy edition or maybe even two, especially if you’ve got lots of inexperienced staff”.

“As far as I can see, Mixmag haven’t hired any staff to work on the magazine – so the idea they’ll be back on the shelves before the year is out is a fantasy.”.

A rather weird thing to throw in the mix, however, was an announcement by Wasted Talent’s boss Nick Stevenson in October 2020 of a new print edition of Mixmag… in Spain. Yet there’s no word on when – or, let’s face it, if – British readers will once again be treated to an edition of the magazine printed on paper…