UK publisher, EMAP, is to close its Smash Hits title after 28 years and is blaming mobile phones.

The magazine was the music and entertainment “must read” for generations of teens, but has now declined to 120,000 copies, hundreds of thousands less than in its 80′s peak.

The publisher says that teens these days get their information online and anyway, spend a high proportion of their disposable income on running their mobile phone and content. While there’s a healthy degree of scape goatism going on here, it does reflect the changing times in which we live.

Story from Brand Republic.

The industrious Alfie Dennen and his team have put together recordings of women screaming the pleasures of the 500 most popular male names in the UK (complete with bow-chicka-bow-bow background music), seriously raising the stakes in the porno ringtone biz. Big-name porn stars that have gotten in to the ringtone business charge more than Orgasmatones for generic dirty-talkin’ ringtones, with no personalization.

- US mobile content rating system in the works: The trade group of US mobile operators wants to define a standardized content rating and filtering system, not only to make it that much more difficult for kids to see porn, but to also pave the way for them to sell ringtunes with explicit lyrics intact, a move supported by record labels.

- Dutch group proposes surcharge on MP3 players (thanks, DMEurope): A Dutch group that already collects a surcharge on the sales on blank CDs and DVDs to compensate copyright holders for “lost” revenue — since, after all, the only thing anybody ever does with blank media is share music and movies — wants to being collecting a similar fee on MP3 players to the tune of 3.28 euros per GB, a move that could not only hurt the country’s electronics companies, but forestall the sales of digital music players — including mobile phones.

- OMA distances itself from DRM licensing mess: The Open Mobile Alliance issued a statement reiterating it’s got nothing to do with MPEG LA or the controversial terms at which that company is licensing the OMA DRM standard. It’s a strange announcement, with OMA highlighting the need for mobile services based on open standards — which begs the question of why it adopted a DRM standard requiring users to license so many patents.

- DRM frustrates digital music buyers: A UK magazine says people are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the restrictions on music they buy from download services, such as the inability to play songs on multiple devices, and pricing levels.

- Xingtone to let artists sell ringtones directly to consumers: While Xingtone’s consumer software lets users make ringtones out of music they already own, the company is happy to play the other side, too, letting artists set up online stores to sell their own tones.

Forget everything I said about the service being about promoting Capitol artists; it’s a total money-grab by Capitol, which considers the ringtone and the underlying Coldplay single “completely separate”. Miko says the point isn’t to boost music sales, but the deal was made “because we felt the ring tone was worth releasing.” And from the rest of his comments, it’s clear that was a financial, rather than artistic, decision.

But the real gem comes when Maier asks, “Would it ever make sense to give the ringtone away? It seems you could give it away, build a lot of buzz with consumers, and—most likely—people would go out and purchase more albums or singles.”

Miko predictably replies: “Absolutely not. We could also sell the ringtone and build a lot of buzz and have people then purchase the album. One is probably a much better business than the other.”

The only problem is he’s probably wrong about which business is better.

So record labels and bands like Coldplay will use the tones to push their latest releases. Given the labels’ penchant for putting more importance on physical sales than digital ones, you’d think they’d treat these tones as promotional material to drive CD sales, which they undoubtedly are — “Releasing ‘Speed of Sound’ as a ringtone helps us build excitement for the release of X&Y,” Coldplay’s manager said in the release — but no. To have the privilege of promoting a band’s new release, users must pony up $2.49. Plus data charges.

Undoubtedly, some fans will flock to these tones and pay whatever’s being charged for the chance to get their first taste of a new release — which makes the tones little more than exploitation. Coupled with the backlash against some ringtone sellers, this is yet more evidence that there’s little interest in building a long-term business for ringtones instead of greedily going after whatever short-term gains can be had. The potential problem for the mobile music business (as well as other mobile content sectors) is that these sorts of practices and bad experiences will turn consumers off from mobile content all together.

DIY ringtone software and services could put a dent in ringtone sales, an area where consumers are likely getting tired of high prices and questionable selling practices. Got an e-mail today about WeNeedTunes, a free Web site/service that lets users upload their music and then converts it to mobile-friendly formats for a number of different handsets. The site also plans to add video and image functionality in the future.

These things that let users format and transfer media they already own to their mobiles will become more prevalent as the demand for personal mobile media grows. For the time being, it’s independent efforts outside the scope of operators or media companies that are set to capitalize on it.

First “moantones,” now “groantones.” Porn star Ron Jeremy is getting into mobile content, Ringtonia says. In addition to porn, he’ll be selling ringtones and all kinds of other stuff you’d be embarrassed to show in public. At least he’s got a cool icon, though.

It’s an interesting new combination of things that aren’t really new — record companies have been offering ringtones and other mobile content to entice people to buy hard copies of music, and MyTone sounds a lot like Xingtone, except Bounce is selling to record labels rather than end users.

But why would Atlantic UK choose to cannibalize ringtone sales by giving them away? It’s just a reflection of the higher priority record labels put on sales of physical goods, rather than digital ones.