My Original Idea For A New Music Magazine

My original ideas consisted of a magazine based around musicals and musical theater or a magazine based around the growing sub culture of Nerdfightaria and DFTBA records. I have selected these music genres as I think that both have a niche market and both are un-catered for in current magazines. I am also a fan of both genres therefore I feel that I will be able to not only ask others what they wish to see in the magazine but I can make a judgement myself.

I think that out of the two genres I am going to choose Nerdfightaria as I think that their target audience will be easier to pin down. This is because all different ages of people can be fans of musical theatre and consequently it would be difficult to define what should be in the magazine, even though the audience probably are all going to be of the same class. This idea of lack of definition for the content is reinforced by musicals, especially successful musicals which don’t come out regularly; there are possibly one or two big hits per year. As they are so infrequent it would be difficult to find enough information to make an interesting magazine based around them on a regular basis.

I do not believe that I will run into all of these problems with the audience (Nerdfighters) of Nerdfightaria, this is because they are already a common interest group and a community, which means they share the same norms and values. Nerdfightaria encourages participation; a magazine would be another way of introducing members and in turn, getting them to participate in activities. Nerdfighters are also around the same age, though their class is a wider range, this means that alongside the music they are likely to share the same opinions on other subjects such as politics and fashion.

Rolling Stone Case Study

The Magazine Industry: An Overview

A music magazine is a magazine that is dedicated to particular genres of music, it will generally contain interviews with artists and bands and photo shoots as well as reviews of albums singles concerts and general music based news. In the general UK magazine industry around 2,600 magazines are sold per minute, this adds up to around 3.7 million magazines sold per day. This shows the sheer scale and size of the music industry. The industry appeals to both men and women with around 80% of women and 70% of men regularly reading a magazine. The UK spends, on average, £2 billion on magazines every year, with over 3,300 different magazines in circulation; with the scale of magazine publications like this it isn’t difficult to see how hundreds of these magazines are specifically for music.

For the first half of 2011, the magazine that had the highest circulation in the UK was an “ASDA” magazine closely followed by “Tesco” magazine, this is because they are free and posted to any one near a store or anyone to whom they have details for, you can also pick them up in - store. The highest commercial magazine was “TV Choice”, which placed third with a circulation of 1,354,761. No music magazine featured in the top 50 magazines with the highest circulation in the UK.

According to ABC figures, “classic rock” was the only paid for music magazine that did not drop in circulation in 2010; however they did not increase their circulation either, this shows that magazines were struggling to keep the interest of their readers, this could have been due to the new technological input.

The average price of a magazine in 2008 was £2.25, with the average price of a music magazine currently averaging between £2.50 and £3.00 for a monthly magazine.

There are currently no magazines that cater to the genre of Nerdfighter (an up and coming music genre produced without labels), therefore I will use this gap in the market to produce my music magazine.

Bibliography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_magazines_by_circulation#United_Kingdom

http://www.foliomag.com/2008/magazine-newsstand-sales-delight-and-confound

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/

http://www.brandrepublic.com/go/news/article/1022008/magazine-abcs-kerrang-high-note-music-film/

Questionaire Results

From the results of my questionnaire I can tell that my magazine will mainly be aimed at females aged 14 to 18. Around 50% of my target market already buys a music magazine this suggests that there is still a big market of who do not currently buy music magazines. I will aim my magazine at this niche market. From my question ‘Would you be interested in buying a Nerdfighter music magazine?’ I established that around 70% of my target market would be willing to buy a Nerdfighter music magazine. This means that 20% of the people who said that they already bought a music magazine would be willing to buy another magazine proving that there clearly is a market for this genre of magazine. When asked how much my target audience would be willing to pay for a magazine half of them said that they would be willing to pay £3 to £4.99, this implies that my target market will be middle class as they will have money to spend not only on supporting the artists but on buying the magazine. This will help me when I come to deciding on advertisers, as having the right advertisers in the magazine will encourage the target audience to buy the magazine. The audience were divided between the magazine being published fortnightly and monthly, 40% of the target audience voting either way. I got the same result with my next question ‘How would you like to be able to contribute?’ with 40% voting for with photos and 40% voting for with email this suggests that my audience will be technologically based and inspired. It also suggests that they have opinions and want to be heard this means that they will be an active audience. When asked what would interest them the most about the magazine my target market replied with articles about the artists, this suggests that they are literate people who are intellectually stimulated. However, this was contradicted when they were asked what would attract them to the cover, they replied with the picture, signifying that not only are they intellectual but creative. The final question that I asked them was ‘Do you check your emails regularly?’ 90% said yes, this reinforces the idea that they are influenced by technologically this means that I could use the internet to communicate with and to advertise to my target market.

Target Market Mood Board and Analysis

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