3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I would use IPC media to distribute my magazine because my magazine is very mainstream and so it would need a large amount of profit to keep running and be able to compete with other magazines of this type. IPC media is a conglomerate who owns around 80 magazines of many different types and genres. I would have this as my main distributer because it is targeted at the mainstream magazine industry and would give me the best chance of distributiong my magazine to the largest number of shops. To appeal to the audience I could try large advertising campaigns if I could create enough money by making a TV advert for my magazine, or maybe try and advertise my magazine on different websites of a similar genre by buying advertising space off these other companies.

One of the main types of institution which could distribute my magazine is leading supermarket's such as Asda, Tesco or Morrisons. I think that these would be good places to distribute my magazine because they often distribute other magazines of the same genre to my magazine and is where I tend to pick up my magazines when I would like to buy. Because a supermarket attracts all different types of customers to the shop this shows how there maybe a number of people who may be interested in buying my magazine. In general however most of the customers are adults who maybe with their children who may be interested in my magazine and so will want to buy it to find out what is going on in my particular genre; rock music in the industry.

Another type of store which could sell my magazine are music stores such as HMV this is obvious that the people who are shopping in HMV are interested in music so would want to buy my magazine. Especially if placed by the rock CDs section or by the front counter so that people who are waiting in the queue can see my product and may decide to buy this also.

My magazine could have it's own website where it can keep people who read it informed on when the next magazine is going to be published or hints of what will be in next weeks issue to try and get more people to buy the magazine's next time it is published. On this website I could use media 2.0 this is where the audience can participate in the making of the different texts and what is to be in the magazine. This will make them feel more involved with the making of the magazine. For example the website could give the chance for the audience to give ideas for the inds of things which they would enjoy reading about in the next issue or do survey polls on what they thought of things which were raised in the most recent issue. There could also be a page where the audience could leave messages and these would be printed in the next issue maybe their own reviews of particular albums etc.
In addition to this website social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook could distribute my product as these websites have millions of people registered online and it would be a great and easy way to reach millions of people in one place.
Digital publishing is becoming more popular in contemporary society with 17% of magazines now available online; therefore having my magazine available online would enable my finished product to be distributed on a lareg scale to many different audience types if this was used.

Another way is by selling my magazine at gigs and festivals these are visited frequently by music fans so would be a great way to get my magazine known. This is where people of my target audience are likely to socialise as they get to listen to bands which are more than likely featured in my rock/indie magazine.

When distributing my magazine I need to remember that they are produced to attract audiences and to sell advertisement in the magazine to make a profit. The main profit for a magazine is from the advertising. Magazines tend to be of all different types of genres but generally are all under control of one large media conglomerate such as IPC media company which I looked at in my initial research. So therefore there are lots of different types of magazines available to be distributed even though it is not individual to ech magazine.

In my research I have found that although most magazines such as NME try to portray this individuality and rebellious attitude within the magazine it still at the end of it is all about just making a profit and it is using these conventions to try and sell this product to that large audience even though it is still part of a large conglomerate company. This tells us that the core messages of this magazine are not particularly the feelings of the main editors and writers of the magazine they are just writing in this style and the particular events because they have to stick to their target audience structure.

However there are magazines which try to be true independents where they do not include any advertising and just solely rely on the sales of the magazine to create a profit. An example of this is IPG - Independent Publishers Guild. This company will have a more hands on approach to the different magazines so the writers may be more related to what they are actually writing and also believe in what is being written in the magazine. Having this independent publisher would mean that I would have more creative control over the magazine but would have very little profut coming in as I have not used advertising.
With this in mind I would choose to try and sign to a congmolerate company as it is a very large market with many different types of magazine available so it is important that I can create a profit and so gain money so that I can keep publishing different issues each month.