Final Decisions

What music genre and why? 

The music Genre that I have chosen to do is POP. The reasons I chose POP as my genre, is because:

·     There are lots of new and upcoming artists and bands that don’t feature in magazines, but people want to see them in magazines and know more about them. This means that all other POP magazines, feature popular well known artists and bands in their magazines as they know that people will like them and they will therefore be successful. I believe that there is a gap in the market for POP magazines featuring new artists and bands and this will allow me to develop a magazine with new artist that other magazines don’t go into much detail on.

·     It is one of the most popular and well-known music genres in the world, which means that this genre will appeal to a wide range of people.

·     I am interested in this style of music, therefore because I am aware of everything a pop magazine includes and what the style of music is like, this will be very beneficial, when I am creating the media product and it will allow me to complete this task to the best of my ability as I know about this style of music.

·     My questionnaire analysis showed that most people are interested in this type of music (65%). This will also link in with my target audience, if the majority of people that took my survey were girls; it tells me that most girls who took my survey are girls.

·     Therefore, because people are interested, it will attract more readers, rather than doing a magazine on Jazz that people aren't interested in as my survey showed (0%) of people are interested in Jazz.

·     People who read POP magazines like to keep up to date with the latest music and news, therefore, the content included inside this magazine will have this, which many others POP music magazines don’t have.

Who is your target audience and why?

I have chosen to aim my magazine at a predominant audience of females between the age of 15 and 19. This is because from research, I can see that this age range are people who are most likely to go to concerts and keep up to date with the latest music and who would be most likely to listen to this music, whereas an older person may be more interested in listening to other genres of music, so young people would be more interested in listening to pop music. This is also reflected in my survey because from my survey analysis, I can see that the majority of people who are interested in POP music range from age 16-19, this allows me to see who my magazine would most appeal to. Also, my survey showed that most girls are interested in pop rather than boys. Although, there is already a lot of competition in the market for POP magazines, from doing research, I believe that a lot of these magazines are aimed at a younger target audience and there isn't as many POP magazines open to older teenagers. I also believe that this is an appropriate age range because if you look at other POP music magazines such as ‘top of the pops’ which is aimed at a younger audience, the content inside these magazines aren’t just based on music, they include things such as fashion, which doesn’t really conform the codes and conventions of a ‘music magazine’, my magazine will be entirely based on music.

What research have you done to provide evidence for your decision?

My questionnaire helped me with a lot of the decision when deciding what magazine genre to do and what age range and what gender to aim the magazine at, this is because my survey results showed that 65% of the people who took my survey were interested in POP music. More than 70% of the people who took my survey were between the ages of 15-18. My survey also shows that people want to see a new magazine at least once a week, therefore there is a gap in the market, and if there isn't one each week, the information that they do find out about new pop music is always going to be a week late, which shows there is a gap in the market for this style of magazine. Pop music has an aim to “an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology”. It is aimed at most people and there isn't a magazine that normally does this. From my research, I can see that Pop magazines such as blender and top of the pops, normally feature more than one artist and focus the whole magazine on lots of different artists which can sometimes make the page look like it has too much content and too many images, which may make a reader choose a different magazine. Therefore I think it is important to have a pop magazine that just focuses on one artist. Although, I do understand how important it is to feature other artist and bands as this means that if the reader doesn’t like the artist featured in the main image, they might be interested in other artists inside the magazine. However, if you feature other artists, there does not need to be a picture of every artist that is going to be featured inside the magazine on the front cover as this can make the cover of the magazine look very cluttered.

Potential names for my magazine?

Most POP magazines have very unique and unusual names, this is very important in allowing your magazine to be recognisable to your target audience and to also allow the name of your magazine name to stand out among other POP magazines. To come up with potential names for my magazine, I used a thesaurus (www.thesaurus.com) and typed in ‘POP’. When you think of ‘POP’ music, you think of loud, popular music, when researching potential names, I kept in mind that it is important to correlate the name of the magazine with the style of music that the magazine is going to be based on. When I types in ‘POP’ to the thesaurus, some potential names for a magazine that stood out to me, include:

• Clash
• Miss Pop
• Loud
• Roar
• Explosion
• Snap

The final name that I have chosen for my magazine is 'Miss POP', although this wasn't one of my ideas at first, I believe that is effective and stands out by linking in with my target audience, which is females ages 15-19. It also allows the audience to be aware of the genre of the music magazine, just by reading the name of my magazine. 

Potential artists to be interview for my magazine:

When researching other POP magazines, I looked at many of the artists that are featured inside these magazines and decided of some potential artists for my magazine. Some of the people that I am going to feature in my magazine are:

·        Beth Hayes

·        One Direction

·        5 Seconds Of Summer

·        Little Mix

·        Taylor Swift

What other magazines influenced your thinking?

To get some ideas about what I could include in my contents page, I researched many different music magazines that had the same genre as mine, which is pop. Magazines such as Billboard, top of the pops and bliss all influenced me and gave me ideas that I can incorporate into my magazine. Although, top of the pops is for a much younger audience compared to my target audience, the magazine still gave me ideas about what I could include in my magazine, such as what images of pop groups, Interviews and competitions etc. I got more ideas from pop magazines such as billboard and bliss as these are aimed more of an older teenage audience so I was able to gain more from researching these magazines. When doing the research about these pop magazines, whereas top of the pops is for a younger audience so has lots of images on the front cover, bliss and billboard always only feature one person and therefore only have one image on the front as you shouldn't need to have lots of images on the front to attract an older teenage audience. I also found out that the models on the front of the magazines, such as pop groups and artists such as Justin Bieber, One Direction and Taylor swift all wear ordinary clothes, this is due to the fact they are so popular, they do not need to be in bright clothing to stand out on the magazine cover as people instantly know who they are and want to read the magazine.  Also, none of the photos taken of the models have a certain background. Most of the backgrounds that are used in the background of POP music magazines are white backgrounds. This insures that the model stands out from the background and allows the pictures to look like they have been taken in a studio, as well as allowing them to look more professional. I also got ideas on how I can layout my front cover and contents page with the main image in the centre and the rest of the text and of the magazine surrounding the image. 

How much are you going to charge for your magazine and why?

I am going to charge £2.99 for my magazine, as this is an affordable sensible price for my whole target audience. I also based this on the survey that I done which shows that my target audience would pay up to £2.99 for a magazine. Most music magazines cost between £4 and £6, therefore, I believe have a lower price will allow me to stand out against competitors of this genre of music. Also, because my magazine will feature new artists whereas other magazines feature popular artists, I need to ensure that it will be successful, if it is a high price; people aren't going to buy it. 

Institution

I think that the best institution to distribute my media product is ‘Immediate Media Company.’ Immediate Media Company is a combined publishing house; it is combined with Origin Publishing and BBC Magazines. The publishing company started distributing in 2011. It publishes over 50 magazine titles including 23 BBC Worldwide titles which have a long term licence as well as publishing over 30 websites.  Immediate Media Company is one of the most popular distribution company's and they are one of the biggest consumer media businesses in the UK and the third largest magazine publisher. Immediate Media Company is an award-winning special interest content and platform company. Their aim is to make everything good quality. People read their content across 36 websites, 58 magazines and they reach over 70 million people. The only music magazine that ‘Immediate Media Company’ currently distributes is ‘Top of the Pops’ which is aimed at a much younger teenage audience, whereas mine is aimed at an older teenage audience. My reason for choosing Immediate Media Company to distribute my magazine is that although they already distribute one POP genre music magazine, this is aimed at a younger audience so have nothing like my magazine. It is also beneficial for the company in many different ways as it allows the company to open up their media products to a wider range of people. Also, my magazine will differentiate the company from others as it only features on artist whereas other magazines normally feature more than one artist.

Camera/Models

I have decided that I am only going to have one model on the cover of my page and that I will only have one main image on the page. In total, I am going to have 6 images; this will consist of one main image on the cover, contents and double page spread as well as three other images that will go along the top of the double page spread. The camera that I will use to take my images is a NIKON L81o.

What content will be on your front cover, Table of contents and your double page spread?

Front Cover:

I have decided to have only one main image on the cover of my magazine. My reason for only having one main image on the cover of my magazine is to ensure this model stands out as much as they can and to make the magazine look more professional. I have also decided to have a plane white background of my magazine to conform the background of a typical teenage pop magazine, this will also ensure the model stands out against the background and will catch the reader’s eye. The magazine conventions that I am going to use on the cover of my magazine are a date line, headline, banner, and masthead and cover lines and a bar code. I need to ensure that the colours I use on the cover of the magazine are used throughout my contents page and double page spread, this means that every time the reader looks at one of these magazines, they will recognise the colours used and this will also help me keep to a particular house style for a magazine.

Table of contents:

A contents page tells the reader all of the content that is included in the magazine and allows them to find out what page this content is included on. To help me decide how to layout my contents page and what content to include, I looked at billboard, top of the pops and blender, which are all POP music magazines. Blender only uses one model on their contents page so I decided to focus more on this contents page to help me. I have not decided to use any secondary images because I want the magazine to feature only one main model, otherwise if I use too many images the text that is on the page won’t stand out to the readers and they will just focus on these images rather than the text on the contents page.  I am going to have one main image to the left-centre of the page and all of the text going around the right side of this image, like the blender magazines featuring just one artist/band. All of the page numbers will be in a different colour to the rest of the text on the page and I will have the most important pieces of font in bold text so that the reader doesn't have to read every word on the page to find what they are looking for, which makes it more convenient and will appeal more to them. 

Double page spread:

On my double page spread, I will have one main image on the left hand side of the page, as well as having 3 black and white images going along the top of the right side of the page, above the text. My double page spread will be an interview about the artist that has featured throughout the magazine, which will carry in from the headline that I use on the front cover of my magazine. The interview will be about the new upcoming artist. Before the interview, there will be a smaller piece of text introducing the artist and who she is. I need to ensure the colours that I use are consistent and match the rest of the colours that I have used throughout the magazine. 

Images that I will use for my front cover, table of contents and double page spread:

Front cover:

Table of Contents:

Double Page Spread:

The reason I used these image for the front cover, double page spread and contents pages of my magazine is because the models poses makes her look confident. The front cover image and double page spread images are medium close up shots showing from the models shoulders upwards and she is looking directly into the camera, making the magazine look more inviting and welcoming. The pose also makes her look confident as she is smiling into the camera. Furthermore, the lighting in the images all make the model stand out and isn't too bright. You can also clearly see what the model is wearing as well as the props used in the image (flower crown).

How my images conform other POP magazine images: