Overview of the Magazine Industry

Overview of the Magazine Industry

Currently the magazine industry is in an absolute abundance of women’s weekly magazines, which take 6 of the spots in better retailing’s top ten magazines. Also taking 3 of these spots are TV listing magazines with Radio Times taking the top spot at 1,276,045 sales, leaving room for a health & parenting magazine at spot 4.

According to ‘media week’ there was not 1 solely music magazine in the top 100 in print magazines! Although about entertainment shows that this genre of magazine is not lost with a top 10 list, with Q magazine at the top who claim to be ‘the world’s best music magazine’.

Although generally there are some disgustingly large falls in magazine circulation across all genres, for the second half of 2014 there was a combined average circulation of 33 million.

With these falls in circulation, magazines are being forced to try other methods, which has proved for many to sell their issues digitally to a more technologically advance audience. As far as these sales go the economist takes the lead with 49,976 digital sales at the end of 2014, a 77% increase in a year! With the next best digital seller (T3) at only 17,791.

Print is expected to receive around £2.5bn on advertisement this year by strategy analytics. This money will come from advertisers placing their adverts in magazines and newspapers. The UK is expected to be the first country with at least half all money spent on advertisement being spent on digital advertisements, taking money from print advertisement.

The internet is said to have drawn the amount of money we spend on print publications to spending on online based media between 2007 and 2013.

Complete Analysis of a Music Magazine

Complete Analysis of a Music Magazine

(New Musical Express) is a British music journalism magazine which was born in the March of 1952 after the purchase of Accordion Times and Musical Express, which name was changed to NME. It offered a variety of information on music typically in the genre of rock, alternative and indie. It was the first British paper to include a chart for the most popular singles, which it began in November of the same year.

During 1972 and 1976 it was considered a very self-involved reporting paper, before becoming more associated with the punk rock scene through the writers Julie Burchill, Paul Morley and Tony Parsons. NME gradually shifted from a newspaper format to one with a connotation to that of a magazine during the 1980's and the 1990's, eventually scrapping newsprint altogether in 1996.

The target audience of the New Musical Express is generally teenager and young adults with an alternative taste in music, offering a way to keep up with new music that fits to their preferences, outside of the mainstream.

During the 1960's the paper’s circulation peaked under Andy Gray and the Beatles and Rolling Stones were often featured on the front cover. The paper developed close competition with another weekly music magazine ‘Melody Maker’ although sales were still good.

In the 1970's NME's sales began to fall behind that of Melody Maker and they came close to closure by their owners since 1963. Alan Smith was made editor and was given a short amount of time to revive the magazine or it would face closure. He did this by recruiting underground journalists, making NME the first place to hear about all the new underground music, such as glam rock and punk.

In the 1980's the magazine became the most important of its kind in Britain and released tapes of up and coming bands to its readers at low cost. During this decade there were internal arguments about whether the magazine should focus more on the new genre hip-hop or stick to rock like it always had.

The 90's brought grunge music to the NMEs attention and they covered it up until Kurt Cobain’s death, when they started to concentrate on ‘Brit-pop’ a term they coined to classify bands such as blur and oasis, in a time when, because of the blur-oasis feud, their sales were high.

During the 2000's, NME made the same mistake they had earlier made with covering hip-hop, which they quickly drew to a close when their sales began to dwindle; a clear sign of their error.

Now NME is set to become a free magazine due to the huge lack of interest in our current day economy.

College Magazine - Contents Page

College Magazine - Front Cover

College Magazine - Questionnaire Results Analysis

Questionnaire Results Analysis

The results of the college magazine questionnaires show that 90% don’t already read the college magazine, showing us that it is currently not reaching or engaging the target audience thus falling short of its purpose.

Our survey also showed that the top 5 colours were white, red, black, blue and purple. This gives us a pallet of colours to use when deciding on the design of the front cover and contents page.

80% of questionnaires said they wanted to see a student or student work as the main front cover image, ruling out ideas like nature or technology for this position.

75% of people surveyed said that they would pay between 50pence and £1 to buy a good quality college magazine. This gives us a good idea of what an acceptable price would be to sell the magazine at.

The top 5 subjects that students wanted to be covered in the magazine were College events, technology, jobs, gig guide and films. This tells us what content to include in the magazine.

Many of the questionnaires which submitted a name suggestion for the magazine included east Norfolk or the abbreviation EN.

85% of questionnaires stated that freebies would entice them further into buying the magazine, suggesting coffee vouchers and food vouchers could be a good idea to add.

It was a 50/50 split on whether there should be an online version of the magazine, suggesting that if we did include one, it could certainly gain popularity.

College Magazine - Questionnaire

College Magazine Questionnaire

1.     Do you read the college magazine?                  Yes/No          

2.     Would you subscribe to an online version?      Yes/No           

3.     Would freebies/vouchers attract you?              Yes/No           

4.     Would you subscribe to an online version?      Yes/No           

5.     What colours attract you? (Top 3) 1.                2.                3. 

       

6.     What fonts attract you? (Top 3)     1.                2.                3. 

        

7.     What would you like to see in a college magazine? (Circle 3)

       #College Events        #Gig guide                #Subject Information

  #Technology               #Problem Page         #Job tips                 

       #Puzzle Page               #Fashion Page          #Film Page                  

#Sport Page

                 8.     What would you like the main cover image to be each issue? (Circle 1)

#Student                    #Teacher                  #Student Work

           #Technology                                              #Nature                       

9.     What should the title be?                                                        

10.   How often would you like it published?                                 

                     11.    How much would you pay for a good quality college magazine? (Tick 1)

 #50p                         #£1                       #£2

College Magazine - Analysis

This college front cover has a main image of a young, clean man. Highlighting from the offset that the magazine is aimed at young people.

The cover lines are of different sizes depending on their importance and level of interest. Increasing in size the more shocking or exciting the cover line is

The large masthead takes a whole chunk at the top of the page, making it clear to see and (in a larger font) easier to differentiate from other text in the page. The font used is also one associated with American college and is used for the numbers on the backs of football teams shirts.

The date, location intended and issue number are located in much smaller text just underneath the masthead in a white font, this ensures they can be seen but do not draw from more important things on the front cover.

The bar code is placed neatly in the bottom right hand corner as not to draw attention from the main image, however the price tag linked to it is in gold possibly to emphasize that it's free.