TASK 3: How does 'THEWIRE' Magazine's Front Cover Appeal to Audiences?

 

Research Task Two: Independent Music Magazines

Essentially, independent magazines have much more creative freedom and are curated by like-minded journalists and creatives who share a genuine belief on which they rely while creating new copies of the magazines. Differ within Independent magazine and mainstream is that mainstream magazine can increase their profit by providing advertisings in the magazines, whilst independent magazines can rely only on sales of the copy. Even though independent magazines can experience more creative freedom in publishing, they can face budget inconvenience and the finance situation per month might go as low, as it might go high. Depends on the circulation and distribution. To create an image about independent magazines, I will navigate through very successful independent music magazines.

Will begin with the world’s greatest print and online music magazine – The Wire.

The Wire is independent since 1982, and originally was publishing about jazz music and new music, and rarely there were bits about mysterious musicians and nature of music. But now, it covers a wide range of global alternatives, underground and experimental music. The Wire promotes the most marginalised and undervalued musicians on the planet, with different music genres such as rosk, electronic music, hip-hop, new jazz and moreover. The magazine is in the hold by a team of fully-time staff based in London office, it also includes international teams of photographers, writers that can find useless and necessarily information across the globe.

The Wire aims for greatest investigation among diverse genres, both past and present. As there isn’t any strict constitutional rules so magazine doesn’t face strict editorial policy and exclusion. It does not have a certain agenda; the magazine commits for deep investigation and best outcome of it for different genres. The Wire intents to target the audience of listeners under 25 years old, however there is large possibility to interest older year group which will find the magazine as much as interesting as target audience.

At the beginning, the magazine faced several disadvantages, because it was more focused on one music genre it didn’t had its global appealing, but since it started to include more and more music genres, it gained its audience.

The second also very successful music magazine is RnR, its an eclectic magazine and has covered a broad base of music. From the mainstream to rock, folk, blues, country and more. RnR is an independently run magazine,is for musicians and fans, put together by a small and dedicated team.

RnR was launched in 1988, and originally the magazine’s title was Rock'n'Reel, changing its name to R2 in early 2009 and adopting the current title in 2017. RnR emerged during rock and roll’s formative years, publishing early success of artists such as The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones. The magazine was providing secure platform for readers to go in depth with interviews, reviews and always wanted to influence the public’s perceptions of the genre and its stars.

After a few years of existing magazine started to provide more diverse subgenres, such as ‘Punk’, ‘Alternative Press’ and ‘Metal Hammer’. By which the magazine could be more appealing for diverse listeners, and it also provided a platform for underground or undervalued artists. The magazine covers a wide range of music that new reader might discover something new.  RnR features great variety of content, with deep interviews and articles. Featuring underground musicians and tracks.

RnR has a feature such as ‘Inside Job’ which allows to look inside the industry that produces specific genre of music. Magazine includes a lot of information for people who really appreciate music, and content such as interviews with different musicians, reviews, music news and more.

The magazine has its own distinctive thing such as CD in each magazine. Each physical copy comes with a CD which is placed behind the cover page, CD comes with all the songs that will be featured in the magazine, some of the tracks might not be released yet or some of them feature in the reviews section.

Magazine is comprehensive and carefully have put together extensive information for music lovers. 

Research Task One : How has the UK consumer magazine industry evolved?

Due to many significant changes in the world in over 20 years, the circulation of the UK magazine industry has been expanded. Magazine industry has suffered from a decline in print copies and sales drop. In 2019 the country had to stay isolated because of the pandemic Covid-19. Less people could attempt in  buying any print copies, so based on that barrier, the online platforms started to develop more information by creating online websites, which is much easier to access. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, X replaced physical magazines and also became a competition for the magazine industry. While visual platform like Instagram has developed a lot, physical copies have decline in sales massively  The audiences now predominantly interact with its brand through its websites and social media. So, whenever audience want to known or see, they can find it online without making unnecessary effort in buying a magazine. 

Based on analysis of the total number of print copies, in the 2000s 1.6 billion magazines were circulated in the UK, although in the recent years the number of magazines circulation have reached its bottom of 565 million. Number of consumer magazine titles had fallen from 700 in 2000s, to 241 in 2020. The circulation of music magazines and magazines for man been most impacted as its sales have dropped to 1.8 million between 2017 and 2021, which is 90%. From that, we can highlight the fact that total circulation of consumer magazines has been decline and impacted massively. 

Because of digital platforms dominating over physical magazines, many consumer magazines have eventually decided to shut down, as their profit didn't sponsor in sufficient values and the salaries were impacted as well. 

Subsequently, digital subscriptions are growing rapidly. We can't deny the fact that pandemic-19 did boost digital subscriptions and was one of the main factors of decline of consumer magazines. Some magazines purchased better recognition and boosted their profit by completely going digital. 

Overall, what can be emphasised, is that magazine industry currently is not in much demand as before, because of digital platform progressively increasing, which shadows physical copies. 

Set Brief

 INSTRUCTIONS

I have been given a set brief for my NEA

My NEA must not reproduce an existing media product.

I must work individually on my NEA but others may act in or appear in the production  and/or may operate lighting, sound, recording or other equipment under my direction.

My NEA must only use original footage, images and/or text within my production. I must not use any found images in my NEA production

SET BRIEF:  Magazines and online

Requirements of the brief

I work for an independent media production company. I have been given the task of producing  the front cover and contents page of the first two editions of a new music magazine that  is being launched by an independent publisher and two pages for the working website for the  magazine.

The web pages must promote the new magazine to its target audience and enable fans to interact  with the content.

Summary of brief requirements:

• Statement of Intent (approx. 500 words)

• Music magazine covers and contents pages: Two pages for each of the first two  editions.

• Magazine distribution method: Content must be suitable for retail distribution.

• Number of web pages: One homepage and one linked page.

• Cross media production target audience: A primarily 16–25 year old middle market audience  that likes to be entertained.

There must be a clear sense of branding across the two elements of the cross-media production.