Preliminary task

Pre-test Questionaire

Q1. What is your favorite type of music?

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Q2. Do you read music magazines/how often?

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Q3. Are you male or female?

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My questionaire

Music Magazine Questionnaire

What of the following do you expect to see in a music magazine?

Interviews

Reviews

Band information and images

Competitions

Audience letters/opinions

Free stuff/goodies

Exclusives

Other ……………………………………..

What do you prefer to read about in a music magazine (number 1-5 with 1 being the most)?

New bands

Famous existing band

New music

Exclusives

Public opinions

Other ………………………………………

Do you like to know more about the music and band rather than just listening to their music and if so please state?

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Do you find that you decide on which music to listen too valued on other people’s opinions in the music magazines?

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What other ways do you find out about bands and new music?

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What sort of words do you associate with rock music?

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What colours do you associate with music magazines and which ones do you think would work best?

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What is the thing that stands out at you when you look at a cover of a music magazine?

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What is your favorite music magazine and what makes it appealing to you?

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Questionnaire answers

Q1. Out of a survey of 12 people

Q2. When asked to put in priority order

Q3. 10 out of 12 people said they like to know more about the music and band with the most poular answer being the age of the band and what instuments they play.
Q4. 6 out of 12 people said that what it says in magazines dosent matter, they prefer to listen to the music thereselves, and 4 said that what they listen to is decides on what music magazines say and 2 said that it partially does.
Q5. From freinds, internet, TV, radio such as the chart shows, also live streaming computer programmes such as spotify.
Q6.guitars, drums, 'sex, drugs and rock n roll', loud, black, old and amps
Q7. black, white, red, yellow, bold colours, blue, dark and bright
Q8. 1st the band/singeron the front, the main image. 2nd the masterhead
Q9.the most popular magazine is kerrang with 7 out of 12 people choosing it and because it has good colours, good views and new and upcoming bands and covers a wide range of music.

audience research

In order to establish the audience for my media product which is a music magazine of the genre rock, I am going to have to make an audience profile which is creating a mass audience for certain age ranges. I have split it in to three age ranges, Teens, 20-30 and 30-50+ I have done this as those three different groups have lived very different music related lives.

The teenagers who listen to the music will be listening to modern things and will want to know about new and upcoming bands, also these teenagers have not yet lived a full life yet or even one of freedom with no school so they imagine what life will be like as a rock star, they aspire to be famous and to live the life and if not fame the freedom of travelling to gigs and listening to the music. Teens also will not have a great deal of money to spend on albums so they would download individual songs and the magazine can provide a website in which they are able to do so.

Whereas the 20-30 year old will have grown up on rock music and would be into more of the big bands at the moment as they will be living the life and going to gigs and wanting to know what's hot in the present day which is still performing now. They have lived a bit and are at their prime time to go out and have fun so in the magazine they will want to know what's good to buy as they will be the ones earning money and being able to go out and buy CD's.

The 30 -50+ are the people who have already lived the rock life and have gotten old and settled down to a peaceful life and in the magazine they would want to relive the good old days listening to the classic rock band and reminiscing on their personal stories and their connections that they have with the bands. These people will not want to know about new bands and music but old classics that provide nostalgia.

institutions research

When researching institutions I learnt many things and started to realize actually how much of our media is controlled by a few huge conglomerates.

 Such as Bauer, a large German publishing company which owns many media subsidiaries which operate in the UK. But also operates in 14 other countries worldwide, including Germany, USA, Spain, France, China, Russia which are the most powerful countries in the world and all 1st world so that they have a large audience with the money to buy their media products. Bauer has recently bought EMAP consumer magazine division, radio station division and consumer media business, so expanded greatly across the UK. Bauer currently owns Q and Kerrang which are two very popular music magazines in Britain with different audiences, such as kerrang being a more popular modern genre of music whereas Q is more hard rock for adults, Q also has its own radio, television channel and also its own annual music award show, and are considered one of Britain's best music award shows. Bauer also has a 50% stake in the British television company, box television.
another institutions is IPC media, which is one of the UK's leading consumer magazine and digital publisher, that currently own magazines like NME and Womens own. it is holdings of three companies- george newnes, odhams press and fleetway publications. it is now a time Warner subsidiary
a media institution similar to Bauer and IPC media, are the sort of people who will distribute my media product as it reaches out to a large audience and contains international music from the UK and the USA, so it will be able to be published in many countries. also it is similar to kerrang and NME which have proved to be big sellers and reaches out to a large audience. I believe that my magazine will help provide more to a media institution by expanding there target audiences and thus a new found area of profit.

music magazine analysis

The main colour scheme for the front cover of the NME magazine is Black, White and Red. There is a large image which is a mid shot of 3 people from the group Gossip, which is a classic convention of magzines, which overlaps everything except the text that is placed over the main person from the group and also the stapline at the top which covers a tiny bit of the top the womans head, they have done this as it has text on it which the audience needs to read to make it a selling point whereas the NME logo is half covered by on of the groups head which shows us that it is a very well known magazine and that you do not need to see the whole masterhead to know what magazine it is. The shot that has been used is a staged, studio shot in which all members of the group are making eye contact with you, which is mode of address, and the fact that she has pulled her glasses down to show you her eyes makes it feel as if there is more of a connection. The group 'Gossip' are a very famous band and so it brings star quality to the magazine as it is people that the audience will recognise ecspecially the woman,which is why she has been put in the front. the barcode is small and out the way on the magazine but is eaisly able to locate if needed which show that the price of the magazine is not a big selling point and is probably the same price every week so it show it is a magazine that is regualry brought by the same people. and also the fact it is a weekly magazine show that it has a constant stream of interviews and stories that it is able to fill up a magazine every week and also it show it has star quality as they would need a well known band/singer to fill the front cover every week

There are many similarities between this cover and the NME one I previously anaylised, such as the main image being a studio shot and taking over the whole front cover and covering more masterhead. Unlike the NME magazine cover they have put smaller images of groups and text in front of the large image that covers the bottom third of the page. Across the top there is a small banner which has names of a few other famous bands that may attract readers that pay closer attention to it. Over the large studio shot there is the name of the band in large font which shows us that the name of the band is more noticable than the faces of the people in the band, unlike the band U2 where Bono is really famous and his face is known around the world. This front cover reaches out to many different ages with the images of different types of rock like metallica which reaches out to the older generation, and paramore which is for the younger people and also panic at the disco is for young people as it is modern rock and has more of a pop factor to it but this is a good way of covering a larger audience. there are many coverlines to attract people to buy this such as the 'FREE live poster special!' this attracts customers as they see this as them getting somithing extra and the fact they use the word special makes it sound like your getting something unique and better than others like it. also at the very bottom there is a banner which is a list of other bands that appear in this issue of the magazine, they are less famous than the rest of the bands but they must be known a bit to even bother putting them on there. like NME music magazine, Kerrang is also published weekly and offers a different famous band/singer every week and includes reviews, interviews, compotitions etc. the colour scheme of this magazine is similar to NME's by using mainly black and white, although this magazine uses much less red and also uses yellow for the arrow as it makes it stand out from the dull background

This is a contents page from a kerrang magazine. The colour scheme is similar to the front cover which suggest that they use a continuous colour scheme throughout the whole magazine also it is very picture based which show that there main selling point is the bands and artist that make the music which show that it is purely for people that buy this magazine for. the pictures consist of studio shots and shots taken at live Giggs and there is one of AC/DC which is there logo, and out of 9 pictures 8 are the same size and there is one which is larger and takes up the space of 4 smaller photos so this must be a really famous band to attract more space in the magazine so must be a big selling point for when people look at the contents page. the layout is set out well and you can grid the whole page by 4x4 and 3x4 is taken up by pictures and small information and the 1x4 is the right hand column which contains just text about other pages in the magazine which might not attract as much attention as the others.in the top right corner there is the text contents in yellow against a black background which makes it stand out. then lower down it says this week which is black on yellow and along list of what the magazine contains, and this reminds you that it is a weekly magazine and the vast content they are able to get in a week.

This is a double page spread in a edition of NME it features the band green day, a very famous band from America and that have gone world wide. when looking at double page spreads they mostly feature really famous bands as they have to cover 2 pages near the front of the magazine so they need to attract a lot of attention from audiences. half of the double page spread is taken up by a studio shot of the band posing with the lead man in front as he has the most recognisable face by people who are not great fans of them. also anyone who is a fan will see that in their hands they are holding a red grenade in the shape of a  heart which is also there album cover of there most famous single 'American idiot'. then the second half is text about the band and about there new album it has a image of the album cover near the top accompanied by it's name. the background colour is a sort of light beige and shows off the black text and the colour scheme is white, black, red and other mixes of red like beige and orange this keeps it very simple and makes it look good.