Secondary Research

Secondary Research-



Using mainly the internet and sources like The Guardian and existing presentations on sites like Prezi, I conducted some research into already existing music magazines in order to help me gain a better idea of the industry, as well as this I think that the data I gathered will come in useful when planning.



I first looked at prices of magazines on the whole to give myself an idea of where music magazines sit in comparison to other magazines.



Prices-

I went to the website Statista which gathers statistics from over 18,000 sources, providing relatively reliable information.

Compared to 13 other magazine types, music magazines appear to be in the top sector of the price range. With the average price for a (rock) magazine being £3.66 I should be considering competitive pricing strategies, as well as my questionnaire findings. This is for a music magazine about the rock genre, and rock is much more popular than indie/indie rock and so I should think about the prices of other indie magazines as well.



Product Placement-

Some of the magazines I have looked at like Clash and NME are independent magazines and so they actually publish and platform themselves. Other publishers I have found include Anthem Publishing, who cover two principle markets: Music and Food. They are Britain’s fasting growing publishing company by copy sale revenue, their key brand MusicTech has the UK’s largest multi-platform audience. Bauer Media Group are another publishing company however are much larger than Anthem Publishing, making an approximate revenue of €2.4 billion per year. They publish magazines like Kerrang!, Q, Closer, Mojo and Empire. Time Inc. formerly known as IPC (International Publishing Corporation) media are another huge publishing brand, publishing over 60 iconic brand of magazine. Whereas their main focus is lifestyle and their largest market is women, they have previously published NME (1950). This company has experience with the publishing of music magazines and with their main focus being lifestyle and home, there would be little competition between other music magazines being published by Time Inc.



Distribution-

I did some research into where magazines are distributed. Magazines are highly accessible and can be bought via email and can be downloaded online. However they are also sold in the usual places like supermarkets, newsagents, bookstores and stationery stores. Accessibility is important in order to ensure that the product is reaching a large as audience as possible. I looked at the 3 main categories of distribution: paid circulation, non-paid circulation and controlled circulation. Paid circulation is where the magazine would be sold at a set per issue price or the buyer will be given the option to sign up to a monthly subscription and receive a copy through the post on a monthly basis. This is probably the most common and efficient method of distribution for both the institution and audience. Non - paid circulation means that issues are given away for free (Rewind magazine is given away in Camden/Covent Garden), although this would be good for advertisement and the placing of my magazine, no profit will be made. Controlled circulation also involves giving away the magazine but is usually determined by a survey and is distributed only to qualifying readers. I will be giving audiences the option to either purchase the issue individually or to sign up to a subscription where they will receive a copy each month through the post. Although I believe accessibility is important, the magazine will not be available online because it is new in the market and I don’t think it is necessary for the type of magazine.



Popularity-

The Guardian provided this list of the top 10 music magazines. (UK only) Despite being relatively old results (2006) after looking at other website, the general trend that the rock genre is dominating is still the same. The data underneath each brand shows the increase or decrease in the circulation of that magazine between January and June 2006. This data has come in useful when coming to the decision of what genre I wanted my magazine to be. Firstly, with rock dominating, there is a gap in the market for the indie/indie rock genre. Q magazine is published by Bauer Media Group do not specialise in a specific genre, they just focus on famous artists. More recent research (July-Dec 2013) has shown that Q’s circulation had massively decreased 52,781, however this is due to not only the fall in music magazine sales in general but because Q tend to focus on the popularity of bands and artists rather their music and a specific genre.