Evaluation: Question 3: What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why?

There are two methods of distribution and publishing that my magazine could undergo, one would be digital publishing and distribution. This portion of the market is quite hazy and unclear as no one and no single company have made a considerable amount of money through a method of receiving a digital magazine like you would print, just obviously in a digital format, this is because this method faces the problems that 'How do you charge for something that people can get elsewhere but in a slightly different, more efficient and cheaper method?' and 'What am I giving to the audience/customer that they couldn't normally get with a webpage?'. Both of these issues are what is stopping someone getting a high circulation and high sales from the online magazine method. Instead many businesses like The Times newspaper and The New York Times have a pay-wall for their online website content, this has proven effective as both newspapers are still the most popular news websites in the world, and continue to make a large amount of profit from something that isn't advertising or print newspapers.

Bauer Media Group Factfile

• Operates in 15 countries worldwide
• Headquarters are in Hamburg, Germany
• Employ 6,400 people worldwide
• Serve the USA, Russia, Europe and Asia
• A worldwide circulation that amounts to 38 million people a week
• Had a pre-tax profit of £228 million in 2012, a fall from 2011 (£246 million)
• Turnover of around €2 Billion
• Produces over 570 newspapers, 300 digital products and 50 radio and TV stations worldwide
• Produces 3 music magazines here in the UK: Kerrang!, Q magazines and MOJO magazine, all three are hugely popular and achieve a circulation of over 45,000 an issue, with MOJO and Q achieving over 80,000 copies an issue in circulation.

For print media, which is the most likely and most traditional method of publishing and distribution for my magazine I would choose Bauer Media Group. At the moment they publish Kerrang!, Q magazine and MOJO, which are their three music magazines. All three have different genres of music that they try to reach for an audience, and are all very successful magazines, more so than NME magazine, which is what makes Bauer more appealing from my point of view. 

Another thing that makes Bauer one of the best options for distribution of my magazine is that they already distribute 3 magazines successfully, one of them is genre specific, which is Kerrang!, and two that are on popular music, one aimed at an older population, MOJO but cheap(-er) and has stories more on Paul McCartney than Justin Bieber, and then Q, which is a high quality magazine, which is fairly up-market and expensive is also aimed at the slightly older population and mature audiences, it's a magazine that IS NOT aimed at teenagers and young adults, so anywhere from the ages of 30+. This shows that they have a gap in the market for the Indie genre, a perfect example of a big Indie band would be Arctic Monkeys, who have featured very rarely on any of the magazines because of the target audience and the genre of the magazine. It also means that Bauer are lacking in targetting the teenage audience, with the Indie genre becoming one of the most popular genres amongst teenagers it would make sense for Bauer to move into that sector, and I feel that my magazine would be perfect for this gap in the market.

Although Bauer would be a great choice it could also be a bad one. Where Bauer is one of the biggest publishers in the media industry for magazines and other forms of media there is the high chance that the magazine could lose it's personal image and become a lot more corporate and a profit maker rather than a passionate magazine, doing what it set out to do from the start. This is a minor issue and is something that can't be said about just Bauer, in every industry in the world it is a possibility for the small company to be swallowed up by the big giant, it's something that either happens or not depending on who the parent company is and how they are run, Bauer seem to keep all of their individual subsidiaries fairly tight both financially and from a production point of view, creating good, solid products.

Evaluation: Question 1: In What Ways Does Your Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products

In both my magazine and the NME magazine featured above there are several forms and conventions which I think my product has used, developed from and challenged.

The first few examples of forms and conventions that I have used in my magazine are the obvious things such as the Masthead, the use of coverlines, barcode, a 'plus' bar along the bottom, all of which make my magazine seem more legitimate and make it seem like a real magazine that is on sale. On the other hand there are several things that are missing from my magazine that NME has, the first main thing is the 'WIN!' bubble, my magazine doesn't feature anything you can win, and the other thing I think my magazine could do with is a bright banner, showing off and grabbing the attention of the reader as to what is currently in the magazine, especially as in NME the cover is mainly black, white and red, so the yellow text at the top in large lettering certainly helps to improve the ability of the magazine to grab the potential audiences attention when they are looking at the shelf. Another thing that both my magazine and the NME product shown have in common is the use of a black and white image. I feel that this was essential to get the required look for my magazine, which was aiming to get an old school look whilst getting the indie feel, I feel that my magazine did this successfully while also using forms and conventions of a real media product.

I think that as far as development is concerned my magazine doesn't build on many points that the current NME product does, but nevertheless there are still a few. The first main point being that I feel NME's logo and design is fairly outdated, having the same masthead and logo since 1978 (albeit with slight variations to get to today's masthead/logo). I feel that my masthead/logo is something new and fresh, and the versatility and simplicity of the logo/masthead means that I can use it almost anywhere.

In my opinion my magazine challenges the NME product on several different levels, and this time it is more focused on the contents page. The NME contents page is very bland, using only black and white, with a little bit of red, this makes the information cluttered and isn't particularly easy to read, yes the titles with the black highlight and the white text is very effective, and do make it a little easier to find information, but I still feel it is very cluttered. The slight use of red makes it a little easier, but even then I think there is too much information on the page split into too many different categories, I feel that mine is simple, ordering the information by their page number, having the beginning of the magazine at the top, and the back of the magazine at the bottom. I also feel that using a large image and using the front cover to describe and show what the main feature of the magazine is links both the cover and the contents a lot better, whilst at the same time making it easier to find the main feature of the magazine - in the magazine. The idea of using the front cover as a small image in the contents page came from an issue of FHM, which had a description with the cover next to it, I felt that this added more of an impact to the page, and visually improving it, having less in the way of words and more in the way of images.

 As far as the double page spread goes I feel that mine is a vast improvement and challenges the NME double page spread to the left. I think the first point are the colours used, although Oasis are seen as an old school grungy and outgoing band, that don't really do modern talk, I don't see a reason why the colours need to be so bland, the browns and blacks in the photography make the whole double page very bland and unappealing to a teenage audience, this is where I feel my double page spread for my magazine - Cardinal, is a lot better, because I was also going for the old school look, with the 'no modern talking' attitude, and I think I achieved it with a few visual attachments, that weren't originally meant to be there, the first example are the little Ramones inspired logos, it was a spur of the moment thing when I was working on the page, I saw the opportunity and put a British twist to it, using the three lions and Tom's made up stage name, whereas on the NME page there isn't much like it, they have the '2013 long range forecast' badge, but it doesn't bare much relevance to Beady Eye and Liam Gallagher. I feel that the direction of both my magazine and NME is also reflected in both of these covers and other small hints as well. For some reason NME feel the need to report everything from 'Beady Eye', 'Noel Gallagher', 'Liam Gallagher' and any possible opportunity for an Oasis comeback, whereas my magazine is reporting on something different every week, it is very versatile, which is the main challenge that my double page spread is making against NME, it's new, different, and isn't repeating itself.