Music Magazines: Initial Research

Forms and conventions

I have chosen to do the print task for my media coursework.

Today I looked into the different forms and conventions which are involved in the creations of producing a music magazine for specific audiences. I chose two magazines which would have completely different audience types; NME and BBC music. Choosing two magazines which would have different audience types is important so that I can decide what type of music magazine I am going to produce, and thinks about all of the different audience segmentation which is important when deciding what to be editied into the magazine.

The activity was done so that I knew what was important to think about when creating my magazine. I learnt that it is important to think of the type of people reading the magazine and what they would be most interested in reading about in the magazine. It also showed me how it is important to think of the psychographics, social values, jicnars scale, age range, gender and lifestage groupings of the audience rather than just one specific thing about the audience. This is important so that you can get a wider opinion of what the reader will want from the magazine.

Title - NME

Genre of music - Indie/Rock

Audience (demographic and lifestyle) -
Males, aged between 15 – 30.
Living Single or in a relationship.
Middle Class
Underachievers, radicals, aspirists.
Hedonists.
B – C2

Form and Conventions: Cover
Lots of bright colours used. Main colours are red, black, yellow and white.
The picture shows a medium close up of a man singing/shouting into a microphone.
Lots of pictures of different bands.
Font stands out in big bold capital letters.
2 Wide angle, high angle shot of the crowds at Reading and Leeds festival as this is the main theme of the magazine.
NME logo is in the top left hand side of the magazine.

Form and Conventions: Contents Page
NME logo is again on the top left hand side.
The use of bright colours is again running throughout the magazine with the red, black, white and yellow.
The font is in capital letters and is bold again so it is more noticeable to the reader.

Types of cover spread in magazine
About new album releases.
Up and coming bands for the next year.
International bands which could make it big.
About recent gigs.
A few Interviews with musicians
Letters written into the magazine.
Gig listings.

Form and Conventions: Double Spread
Of the recent gigs:
Large pictures of the live show, typically of the performers and a few of the audience.
Bold titles ‘Empire Building; to attract the reader to the paragraphs underneath.

Publisher
IPC Ignite!

Title - BBC music

Genre of music - Classical

Audience (demographic and lifestyle)
Succeeders, carers, achievers.
Traditionalists.
On the Jicnars Scale around A/B.
Age range between 40-60.
Males.
Life stage categories; Career committed, after they have bought a house, living as a couple.

Form and Conventions: Cover
Big title heading which is over the picture.
Picture takes up the whole of the front cover with a man sat by a piano there is then the sub heading ‘the people’s pianist’ so that readers clearly know who he is and what he has achieved so far ‘world’s most popular virtuoso’ this supports the Succeeders psychographic.
The main colours used are white and brown to stick out against the dark red and black on the picture.

Form and Conventions: Contents Page
Contains pictures which continue from the picture on the front of the man playing the piano which takes up half of the first page and then gives the page number and a description of what the article is about.
The page numbers are in bold so that they stick out and the titles of the articles are in a larger font so that it can be easily noticed.
The writing describing the article is smaller underneath and describes briefly what to expect in the article.

Types of double spread in magazine
Letters – people writing in to say what they think about the magazine or important issues needing to be raised.
About music exams, and a level music.
Classical artists playing sport.
This month’s cover CD.
Composer of the month.
Musical destinations.
CD reviews.
Concerts and opera listings.

Form and Conventions: Double Spread
This month’s cover CD.
Few medium close up, black and white photos of the composers, this illustrates how they are from the past. There is also a picture of a busy New York Street in the 1920s which is where the composers often performed in the city and so goes with the article.
The article is written with a title and the 2 composers names are written in a large font and is bold so that this is the first thing that the reader sees when you look at the double page spread.
The article is in small columns which is similar to that of a newspaper such as the telegraph which is a similar audience type to this magazine.

Publisher
BBC

Differences between the 2 magazines

For NME I found out that the age group is younger compared with the music magazine, this is important as then the type of language used within the magazine is completly different, where music would use all standard english, NME may use slang words or taboo language.

NME's audience is lower on the Jicnars scale compared with music.

NME uses lots of bright colours on the front cover to attract the audience to the magazine whereas music's choice of colours are a lot darker typically dark red, black and white.

Similarities between the 2 magazines

A similarity between the two magazines is that they both have similar cover spreads but obviously for the different genres of music they both have listings of places where you could go out and watch the music for a night out, and also both have CD reviews.

Both aimed at males so stick to gender ideology for the male readers, in music magazine there is typically articles on sport, education and most of the pictures are of male composers which shows how males are dominated in this magazine.

In NME there is again a number of articles aimed at the young males but also include pictures of females that may attract the younger audiences to reading about.