Main Task - Research on Music magazines

For my main task, I have to produce a music magazine, consisting of a front cover and a double page spread. Before I start to even think of planning this, I wanted to do some research on how other music magazines were presented and what they are about. In addition to this I wanted to use the acronym 'LIIAR', to help me plan how I should format my magazine, and what types of things there should be included in it to make it an affective music based magazine.

Language
For my magazine to come across how I want it to the language will have to be appropriate for that type of magazine, so it captures the right audience. For example, if it was a magazine which was based around rock music; but it had pink and yellow bubble writing, it wouldn't fit and it wouldn't attract the right audience, yet if you had a magazine which was based around rock and it was black and red etc it would fit and it would attract the audience it's aimed at. This has to also be applied to everything else seen in the front cover. This is because it's important for first impressions. Everything on the front cover has to be representative of what image you are trying to portray through it. Things like the pictures, text; font, colour, size and also what it says will create a scene which will appeal to an audience, but its important it's the audience you want to attract.

Ideologies
The aim of my magazine will be to entertain people, and inform them of upcoming music events, singles, albums, new artists or bands and gigs/concerts etc. It will include things such as charts tables of the music out now so people can see the popularity of what is out, past stories of the artists/bands so people can understand the background to the music they are listening to and what inspired it, and also stories of what has been happening in the music business, just as either an insight into what it is like, or just as a way of creating gossip.

Institution
There are many music magazine publishing companies, but I have decided to research the main ones, this is because they are the most popular and they produce the most successful magazines in production, which means that once I have researched them and decide which one will be most suitable for my magazine, I can use this as my institution, but as well as that, I could be certain it would do well in the music magazine industry.

IPC Media
IPC Media is a leading UK consumer magazine publisher. Almost two in every three UK women and over 45% of UK men read an IPC magazine. That's around 27 million UK adults. IPC Media produce something that would be suited to near close to everyone. It's diverse range spans from Pick me up; which is aimed at middle aged, middle class women, Nuts; which is aimed at middle class men aged from fairly young to how ever old, and also NME, which is one of the leading music magazine in the UK's music magazine industry. This magazine includes things such as Gig line-ups, upcoming music, opinions from some of the leading music critics and also publics reviews of concerts, albums, singles and so on.

Emap Media
Emap media was established in 1947. Since it's launch it has produce some of the UK's biggest named magazine, be it music or commercial. Emap media are the producers of the magazine Smash Hits and Kerrang!, which is not only one of the UK's biggest rock music magazines, but one of biggest music magazines. Emap produce a wide range of magazines, ones which cover a large percentage of the target population. Other magazines include; Sneak, Mixmag, Q and Mojo. As well as producing many magazines, this company also runs the famous radio stations Kiss FM and kerrang! FM.

Future Publishing
Future publishing are a publishing company which is based around people with strong interests in a particular aspect of industry or entertainment. It ranges from cycling to music-making, they provide a wide range of magazines, websites and events that inform, entertain and unite these communities so that their production appeal to the wider population. The publishing company was founded in 1985 in London, it now has a much larger targeted population as it has spread it's horizons to the USA and Australia creating over 180 special interest productions . Some of the productions include T3, Total Film, Digital Camera, Fast Car, Classic Rock and Guitar World. Classic Rock is classed as one of the world’s only high-voltage rock’n’roll magazine, which makes it a big contender for any other rock'n'roll magazine.

Audience
My target audience would have to be someone who has high interest on the focus of the magazine. Due to the fact it is a music magazine, the target population would have to be someone who is interested in music or someone who is very musically orientated. As I would want any magazine of mine to be widely enjoyed by a large range of people, I would have to make it so it appealed to many different people. This could be done by such things as style, music choices, types of stories or even colour.

All magazines and magazine publishing and production companies have different target populations due to the genre or type of magazine they are producing. For example, IPC attracts almost 2 in every 3 women and over 45% of men in the UK. This is very large audience to achieve; they are able to attract this many readers by aiming to produce something that is suitable for many readers around the area they are producing for. They also change and modify their magazines to suit the new style etc that are coming up around the country so that they are keeping up with the comtempory world and so they are still attracting the same number of readers.

Representation
This all depends on the genre of magazine I choose to create. This applies to all productions of magazines. This is because they all have to show certain aspects of the music industry to represent how that genre is brought across and how it is thought of by the wider population. For example, Kerrang! represents the genre of their magazine; rock/punk/screamo etc using dark colours such as black and red. These colours are automatically iconic of this genre of music. As opposed to a magazine like Smash Hits who would use bright vibrant colours that attract the younger audience and come across as seeming happy and bubbly.

Another way in which the production companies can represent the magazine is the way they portray or capture the main photo on the front cover. This is because it is typical of having a rock band on the front cover of the magazine Kerrang! and they are usually represented as been bad or rebellious whereas the front cover of a pop magazine like Smash Hits would be represented as been good and giddy. This is done to represent the music featured in the magazine. All aspects of the magazine are done deliberately to represent the magazine in a certain light to attract the right audience. Even things such as text; font, colour, size etc, photos, information shown on the front cover are all deliberately chosen to create a certain effect and represent the magazine how they want it to be represented.