Magazine Research

What actually are music magazines?

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About Music Magazines

Every magazine in the sector that reported a year-on-year comparison saw sales decline against the second half of 2010, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures for the six months to December released on Thursday.

Uncut magazine was the biggest circulation faller among music magazines in the second half of 2011. The IPC Media title shed 14.2% of its circulation year-on-year and 5.6% compared to the first half of 2011, to 62,305.

The magazine's IPC stablemate NME reported a 14% drop year-on-year, to 27,650 sales – a 4.7% decline compared to the previous six months.

Q saw its circulation fall 12.1% year on year, to 77,522. The Bauer Media title remains the second biggest-selling paid-for music magazine despite a 3.5% period on period drop in sales.

However despite this, music magazines still offer huge potential for advertisements, so it important for artists to utilise this. My artist is most likely to feature in Top of the Pops magazine as it will be aimed at a younger audience so Olly Murs will have a good target audience from this age range. 

Magazine Advertisements Analysis

Colour

The two main colours of this page are pink and yellow with black text. This meets the conventions of any magazine. They are quite youthful colours and therefore this magazine is probably aimed at young girls who would have a high interest in Olly Murs

The colours used on the contents page are usually the same as those used on the front page, but different to the double page spread.

Contents: 

An interesting convention I've noticed a lot of pop magazines have is an image of the cover and have the page numbers pointing directly to the cover story with arrows.  

Images: There are 5 images used all together on this page, which is common for a pop magazine. One of them is related to music as the artist is holding a microphone and the other one is of a pop boy band. 

Font

The heading is in a swirly font which again is quite 'girly' looking and the font used is large as it is the main heading on the page. The subheadings are in bold. The rest of the text on the page is in an ordinary font.

Text: Altogether there are 3 columns of text, but they are separated into sections such as "all about you" and "win" etc. 

There seems to be a lot of text but there is not a lot of words used, just a couple per line therefore the page doesn't look overcrowded. The main words or artist are either in bold or underlined in yellow, so the reader can clearly pick out the most important words on the page.

Page numbers

The page numbers are large and very clear. They are larger on the images and they are bold and either white or pink which follows the magazine's colour scheme. This will make it easy for the reader to navigate through the magazine. 

Codes and Conventions

Most music magazines have a colour theme of 3/4 main colours, these colours are usually from a limited range as this makes the magazine stand out more to its audience.

- The masthead is at the top of the page and it's main job is to draw in the audiences attention as it suggests the genre and target audience, for example a children's pop magazine like "Smash Hits" has bubbly font which appeals to children.

- Buzz words are used in order to attract attention for example "plus" and "free", these words both get the reader to want to buy that magazine.

- Around 5 cover lines are used which also link/relate to the genre of music.

There is always a main image used which is of the main band or artist, when it is a band it's usually a long shot however when it is a solo artist it is usually a mid shot unless it is a solo artist who is looking at the camera in order to connect to the audience where their body language reflects this audience and the genre of music.

- Subsidiary images are used which may also get you to look at the magazine, especially when well known images are used. These images may be used as a back up if some of the others do not appeal to the audience.

- There is an organised layout which suggests a more mature audience as it is formal, this is then appropriate to the genre and the target audience an example of this is Q magazine as it looks more serious.

- A tag line is used which also is there to attract attention and give the magazine an edge for it's audience.

- There is also normally a plain background used as this makes the other features of the front cover stand out more and make it look more formal.

- Basic information is also featured on the front cover; which is needed for most magazines in general like a bar code, price and issue date. If the magazine is more expensive then this price tends to be smaller so that it isn't the first thing the audience see and get put off by. On the other hand if the magazine is cheap then the price is usually bigger and bolder in order to quickly draw in the audiences attention.

Construction

Stage #1 - Imagery of my actor to represent my artist is now included

Stage #2 - Album name and artist name is now included.

Stage #3 - "ALBUM OUT NOW!" has now been included

Stage #4 - The stars and the reviewers names have now be included

Stage #5 - Review quotes have now been included to follow conventions of a magazine advertisement.

Overall

To conclude, I am happy with the final version of my magazine advertisement. I believe it correctly represents the artist and overall it links well with my digipack. It follows the codes and conventions mentioned above very well in the way it shows the quotes, colours, the band names etc, this is very important to the success of my advertisement. The finished ad can be viewed below.