Overview of the magazine industry

There are more than 8000 titles published in Britain which can be categorised as follows:

1.    Consumer (general and specialist) sold in newsagents and available online;

2.     Business / trade / professional / B2B - for people at work;

3.     Customer magazines that organisations to give to their customers as a form of marketing;

4.     Staff magazines to inform staff about their company

5.     Newspaper supplements - come free as part of daily or Sunday paper;

6.     Part works - a set number of issues builds up into an 'encyclopaedia' on a specific topic;

7.     Academic journals - for university-level discussion of all sorts of arcane topics.

 

In the UK today, there are over 3,200 titles, as opposed to in 1980 when there was 1,383.

1.4 billion Magazines are sold each year, as opposed to in 1970 when it was 2.1 billion sold a year, and 1.2 billion in 1992.

Origional idea's statement

Original idea’s statement

My magazine is going to be a music based magazine with a target audience for 8-13 year olds. I have been looking at magazines that are intertextual to my idea, such as “Smash Hits” and “J-14”, and would like to make a similar type of magazine, including a lot of colour and a lot of the celebrities that that age group is into, such as One Direction, Taylor Swift, and Demi Lavato. I hope to put varied articles in my magazine, not just music related ones. For example, I will have a music related article about Katy Perry. Telling the audience when and where she is next touring, when her next album is coming out etc. Then, I plan to have an interview with One Direction to get the answers out of them what the target audience wants to know. For example, asking Harry what his favourite colours are, and then asking Liam what he likes in a girl.

So in conclusion, I plan to keep the magazine mainly about celebrities, but only music inspired celebrities, and have a varied amount of articles about them, so the magazine is interesting and doesn’t get boring.  

Magazine Publishers

Future PLC

Future PLC is the international media group and leading digital business, today announces that PC Gamer has experienced record-breaking growth in engagement in its first month since a the site re-design, with over 52 million page views globally, up 109% over the previous record of 29.5 million. It was founded in 1985 by someone called Chris Anderson and the headquarters is in bath, summerset in the UK.

It is a media company that is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index, this company also owns the US Company, Future US.

It publishes more than 30 magazines in fields such as video games, technology, films and photography. In November 2009, Future reported a fall in profits from £9.5 million to £3.7 million (a loss of 61 percent) in the fiscal year that ended 30 September 2009. Future attributed this to problems with their US market, hit by a fall in the general advertising market.^[2]

Future sold its U.S. music-media brands, including Guitar World and Revolver, to New Bay Media LLC for $3 million.

 

IPC Media

IPC Media is also known as Time Inc.UK

• IPC Newspapers — including The People and The Sun (soon sold), as well as the Daily Mirror and Sunday Pictorial
• IPC Magazines — consumer magazines and comics
• IPC Trade and Technical — specialist magazines (later known as IPC Business Press Ltd.)
• IPC Books — all book publishing (headed by Paul Hamlyn, whose own company had been acquired by IPC).
• IPC printing — all non-newspaper printing operations (headed by Arnold Quick, whose own company had also been acquired by IPC).
• IPC New Products — launching pad for products which used new technology (headed by Alistair McIntosh).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bauer

Bauer, the UK's largest magazine publisher, also has a big presence in radio, but very little is known about the family-run, privately owned company or its shy, elusive boss.

A few months after the Emap deal, Bauer journalists in the UK said that few, if any, of the editors of what were Emap's prize possessions - super-selling consumer magazines such as Heat, FHM and Closer - had met Bauer, though the press office said that some senior managers and editors attended a Bauer conference in Hamburg in April. What is clear is that the key editors were taken for lunch in the UK by Saskia Bauer, the youngest of the four Bauer daughters (all of whom work for the firm - although in what capacity is debated.)

 

 

audience research results

Questionnaire results

1.         60% female and 40% male

2.         100% does not read the college magazine

3.         50% would like it free and 40% would pay 50p-£1

4.         45% would like it monthly, 20% fortnightly, and 20% every half term

5.         The topics wanted are: Film, music, events, horoscopes and competitions

6.         The colours wanted are: Red, blue, green, black and white

7.         The freebee’s wanted are vouchers for food and clothing

8.         For the front cover, the image choices are: 45% said a student and 25% said a celebrity

Preliminary task contents page

preliminary task front cover