Evaluation Draft

3. What kind of institution might distribute your media product and why?

I wanted to choose an institution company that didn’t already distribute a magazine similar to mine to avoid competition, yet I wanted to pick one that I knew was successful in promoting my product in order to gain successful readership numbers and sales. Even though IPC Media is clearly a very popular and successful company as it creates content for many different platforms including both print and online and is the UK’s leading consumer for magazines and digital publishers, it already publishes NME. Although I didn’t base my own magazine completely on this existing media product, I still believe NME is similar to my own magazine down to its type of layout and music genre. Plus NME is very well known amongst music fans therefore this could cause my sales to be poor as many music fans already buy a trustworthy and respected magazine, therefore wouldn’t need to start buying a new one.

 I also considered the National Magazine Company as they clearly know how to distribute and promote magazines very well as some of their magazines include very famous products like Company, Cosmopolitan and Elle. This straight away makes the company look very trustworthy however as they aren’t many magazines published by this company and the ones that are, are mostly about woman’s lifestyle or fitness, I thought my own magazine wouldn’t particularly fit into this institution and there also wouldn’t be a certain type of audience appropriate for it therefore wouldn’t be ideal, especially for promotion.

 Another company that I thought was very successful as well as being very music related was Bauer Media as their brands included various radio stations like kiss, magic and FHM. It’s also important to take into account that Bauer Media reaches over 19 million UK adults every week through many platforms and influential media brands like Heat, Closer and 4Music. One of their main aims is to connect to their readers or listeners and they clearly do this very successfully as all their brands are very well known throughout the UK. The only reason I didn’t choose this company for my own company was because they already promote and distribute Q and Kerrang. I based my own product on Q therefore having another music magazine similar to this style could cause competition, especially as Q already has a very large fan base.

Taking all this into account, I have chosen Future PLC. Straight away I found out this specific company was digital publisher of 2013 – meaning not only it is reliable, it is also up to date with promotional methods as this award was won only last year. It is a leading digital business, reaching more than 58 million international consumers online, on tablet and smartphone and on print. That is an incredible amount of people and the fact it works international, also makes it a more favoured choice for publishing companies. They hold leading positions in a wide range of technology, photography and of course music. Future was also BMA Media Company of the year. One of the main reasons I picked this company was that although it includes popular magazines like Total Film and a magazine which helps you create music called Computer Music, there wasn’t a magazine that was simply about a certain music genre that supplied readers with lots of music content. Therefore I felt my magazine would fill this market gap as well as being published and promoted successfully in this company as Future is also involved a lot with the latest technology such as iPads and viewing magazines on devices such as these. As my target audience are young, they most likely use/own tablets and smartphones so they would be able to read my magazine on them. My magazine can also be promoted this way on social networks like twitter and facebook by having it’s own account and page that people can follow/add. My readers will use these sites a lot therefore they are an appropriate way to promote new artists that will appear on my magazine as well finding out more information about my magazine. Although print versions of my magazine will be very important, online versions that my audience can read on their devices is a new and exciting way of experiencing magazines.