NEA Task 3 : How Does 'The Wire' Magazine's Front Cover Appeal To Audiences?

 

Research Task Two: Independent Music Magazines

An independent magazine is a magazine publication produced without major funding, or support from a large organisation. independent music magazines tend to stick to one genre or niche of music, targeting a specific audience. independent magazines defy the trend of magazines fading into obscurity, becoming a pre-digital exclusive media.

The Wire

The Wire is a London based independent publication, founded in 1982, and originally had a much narrower scope on genres featured in their magazine. It covers a wide variety of genres of music and many different musicians in each niche. While its offices are based in London, The Wire has freelance writers and photographers across the world. The publisher of The Wire is Tony Herrington and the editor is Derek Walmsley. The Wire talks about music in its current state, but covers it's history ad future too. This magazine manages to reach 20,000 magazines circulated per issue. An issue is available for £6.40.

RnR

RnR (published as Rock'n'Reel before 2017) is an independent UK publication started in 1988 covering a range of music genres, releasing bi-monthly. 

An issue costs £6.50 but every issue comes with a CD featuring songs from artists mentioned in that issue's review section of the magazine. The Magazine is published by Terra Nova Magazines Limited and the editor is Sean McGhee. in 2021 over 25,000 people were reading RnR magazine.

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

Magazines have had a steep decline over the last 20 years. This has decreased the number of consumers buying magazines, resulting in the discontinuation of many titles due to lack of advertising revenue. 

According to the Audited Bureau of Circulation (ABC) in the year 2000 there were 700 titles reporting to them declining to 241 in 2021. This significantly affected circulation figures and sales or advertising revenue- 1.6 Billion magazines circulated with a total of £1.4 Billion spent in 2000, down to 565 million circulated magazines, totalling only £669 in sales.

The demand for magazines may have also decreased due to the rise of technology and the surge of social media like Instagram with its visual based content- similar to the medium of magazines. In addition, The pandemic caused people to stay inside, meaning less people were able to buy magazines from their sellers. This would have accelerated the online medium of magazine-like content, reaching a wider audience at no cost, still earning the businesses advertising revenue. during the COVID period, print magazines' ad revenue fell by 33%.

Unlike newspapers, most print magazine sales models are not focused on subscriptions. Without a subscription, a company will receive less profit as people do not regularly buy the magazines.

Future magazine is a publication that is mostly digital and targets an audience that are willing to spend more money on their hobbies, such as tech and sports enjoyers.

Set Brief

INSTRUCTIONS

I will be 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

You work for an independent media production company. You 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.