Charleys Media Blog: October 2012

Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Initial Idea and Plans

My initial idea for a music magazine was a magazine that only has solo artists in it. I think the main target audience would be male and female readers aged from about 14-26 as I think this is the most likely age group to want to read about this. The price of my magazine will be £2 as it costs to make magazines but it's not too dear to buy and most people can afford it. My magazine will be a monthly magazine. As is it a monthly magazine, the size of each issue will be about 40-45 pages long. The typical content will be new solo artists and groups/bands, concerts, interviews with the main cover star/s, competitions, latest male and female fashion trends etc.

Reseach into The Music Magazine Market

Types of music magazines

We can divide music magazines into 4 types. One type is dfferent types of music magazines such as folk, jazz, classical, country etc. Another type specialist instrument magazines that are specific to particular instruments. Miscellanous is another type which are a type that arent about an obvious catergoy and theres the popular music magazine type which is a multitude of niche audiences.

20 UK Music Magazines

Artrocker - Genre: Classic and Modern. Target audience: 16-25 year olds.
Big Cheese - Genre: rock, punk and metal. Target audience: teenagers and students.
Black Velvet - Genre: Rock, Punk and Pop Punk. Target Audience: 16-40 year olds.
Clash - Genre: Alternative. Target Audience: Students.
DJ Mag - Dance and Electronic. Target Audience18-30 year olds.
The Fly - Genre: All. Target Audience: 18-35 year olds.
Hip Hop Connection - Genre: Hip Hop. Target Audience: 16-25 year olds.
Kerrang - Genre: Rock. Target Audience:16-25 year olds.

K Mag - Genre: Dubstep and Electronic. Target Audience: 16-25 year olds.

Metal Hammer - Genre: Heavy Metal. Target Audience: 35+
Mixmag - Genre: Dance and Clubbing. Target Audience:18-30 year olds.
Mojo - Genre: Rock and Alternative. Target Audience: 30+
NME - Genre: Electric and Indie. Target Audience: 16-25 year olds.
Q - Genre: Rock, Indie and Mainstream Rock. Target Audience: 16-30 year olds.
Rock-A-Rolla - Genre: Rock. Target Audience: 18-30 year olds.
Rock Sound - Genre: Rock. Target Audience: 16-25 year olds.
Stool Pigeon - Genre: Indie and Alternative. Target Audience: 20+.
Terrorizer - Genre: Metal. Target Audience: 35+
Top Of The Pops - Genre: Pop and Chart. Target Audience: 10-14 year olds.
Uncut - Genre: Rock and Indie. Target Audience: 35+.

Magazine Publishers

There are three big magazine publishers in the Uk. These are IPC, Bauer and Future Publishing.
The music magazines that are published by IPC are NME and Uncut. The magazine published by Bauer are Kerrang, Mojo and Q. The only music magazine published by Futue Publishing is Metal Hammer.

Magazine Circulations

The most successful music magazines in the list are The Fly and Propergander.The Fly has improved by 8.4% and Propergander has improved by 68.8%.
The least successful music magazines who are losing readers are Mojo, Q, Uncut, Kerrang and NME. Mojo has gone down -2.4%, Q has gone down by -19.7%, Uncut has gone down by -4.5%, Kerrang has gone down by -6.6% and NME has gone down by 17.6%.
The Stool Pigeon was also on the list but is N/A.

Ideas for a New Magazine

My first idea for a new magazine was for country music. I had this idea because theres a few magazines like this and would be able to compete for readers.

My second idea was for Rock music. I don't think I'm going to go with this idea as there are quite a few already out there.

My last idea was a magazine who only had solo artists in it which I have never seen around. I think this would fill a gap in the market and I like this idea the most.