Candidate Name: Thomas McEnaney Candidate Number: 4096 Center: St. Andrew’s Catholic SchoolCenter Number: 64135
OCR – Level 3 Cambridge Introductory Diploma in Media
Unit 13: UK Media Publishing
Purpose of the Magazine
The purpose of Kerrang! is to give their readers the highest quality new and informative news about the rock industry. To do this they produce a weekly magazine where it is targeted to their readership.
To do this they have produced an effective strapline to engage with their audience on their TV advert which is “Live life loud every Wednesday” The connotation of using this is that it tells the audience the day when the magazine is realised and how frequently it is released as well. By using the word “Loud” this suggests that the readers should follow the stereotype of a rock fan who breaks all boundaries and listening's to music wherever they want at full volume.
Purpose of the Magazine
Furthermore on the Kerrang! website they have a Kerrang TV channel which runs from Monday-Thursday from 5pmand their strapline is “It’s a Rock Revolution” which suggests that they agree may not be as popular as it was however they are trying to bring it back to the face of British music and to try and do this they are now offering a television channel available online 4 days a week
Publisher
Bauer Media is a section of the Bauer Media Group which is Europe's largest privately owned publishing group. Bauer Media Group is a worldwide business who sell over 300 magazines in 15 countries as well as online TV and radio stations. The group has over 6,400 employees working on all of the magazines radio stations TV and Online products. The main areas of the business are focused upon the magazine and radio and often recognised and being one of the industry's leading innovators. There first magazine was produced in 1953 which was the popular fishing magazine Angling Times. They entered the radio market in 1990 by making the now KISS FM100 legal which is still a popular dance music radio station. They also own the Liverpool Radio City and TWC radio stations.
In 1994 the company bought there now best selling core magazine called FHM which is ‘For Him’ magazine.
Today Bauer Media has over 80 brand names which are influential within their own respected markets. Some of the brands they own are, Heat, Match!, Car and Yours. They also produce the TV listing magazines Take a Break and Bella.
Source From- http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/about
Form & Style
The magazine dimensions for Kerrang! print edition are 247mm x 170mm which is a regular size for an A4 magazine.
The colour scheme that Kerrang! use is similar on every front cover and DPS weekly. They have a very bold font style for their main headline across the middle of the page and the main image taking up the whole page and covering the top of the masthead. The colour scheme they use for the magazine is black and red the connotations of using red is that it is the colour of love and passion which is what Kerrang!
Have for reporting on the latest news and interviews with bands/artists within the rock genre. The colour black represents the hidden and unknown which Kerrang! are passionate for discovering and sharing with their loyal audience.
Content
The contents page is on page 3 of the magazine and is clearly labelled in the top right corner with bold text in a black circle which is where the readers path of eyesight will start on this page. The connotations of using black and white for their text colour and background colour is because it suggest that the purity of white is overcoming the darkness of black.
The contents page shows an visual imperative for the DPS in the top left corner and is used as a ‘Star Appeal’ to the readers so they are able to quickly find the interview with their favourite band.
Genre
The genre for Kerrang! is rock this is because the artists and bands who feature within the magazine are from this genre of music. This is shown immediately to the reader on the front cover as shown to the left where they have a artist playing the electric guitar on stage. The connotation of the guitar is stereotypical to this genre of music and will immediately attract the audience/reader of Kerrang! . Furthermore The house style they have used for this front cover is black white and red which each represent purity (White) love and passion (Red) and unknown (Black) which will all be represented in its own way inside the magazine. The puff promotions for the magazine are a stand out feature for Kerrang! As they are in a bright yellow outline to the images. They have used this because it catches the readers and potential customers eye and if the promotion appeals to them this is the reason they have purchased a copy which was the purpose of the bright colour compared to the house style colours
Target Audience
The target audience for Kerrang! Is predominantly male with 54.7% of their readers being male. The readers of Kerrang! According to Hartley's 7 Subjectivities the target gender from the magazine demographic are male however female readers do make up a large majority of weekly readers (45.3%). The most popular age range for reading the magazine is 15-24 where 56.1% this shows that this genre of music is popular for this age group which is supported by their weekly circulation figures of 33,024. Kerrang! Magazine has the ability to ‘Inform and Educate’ about the latest news and music in the rock music genre with their interviews reviews and articles they produce. By informing and educating their audience this is the reason that there loyal readership keep purchasing the magazine as they are very informative and precise about all of the topics they cover within the magazine. Furthermore the readers of Kerrang! Fit into the ‘Explorers’ (Maslow) as they read the magazine to find new bands/artist from the rock industry that are progressing and find out more about them as a person and artist. Additionally Kerrang! Also advertise many gigs and festivals inside their magazine which the reader may see and go and ‘Explore’ by purchasing a ticket for the event to see a new artist/band. Psychographics Aspirers- The Kerrang! Readers are Aspirers because they seek a typical personality and fashion that rock fans share a similarity with. This is because they listen to similar music and are using their favourite artists and bands fashion on themselves as they aspire to follow what they do. Socio Economic Needs From my research I have found out that 51% of the readers are of the ABC1 background which is very even compared to other magazines such as NME. This is because of the price of a weekly issue is £2.20 which is cheap for a weekly published magazine with the high quality articles and interviews they have. Also it shows that the advertisements inside the magazine relate to both females and males as well as those from all of the social class table as 51% of the readers are from ABC1 and 49% from c2d AND E. Sourced From- http://magazines.bauermediaadvertising.com/magazines/detail/kerrang
Frequency
Kerrang! Is a weekly print and online based rock music magazine which is sold all over the world including countries such as, Spain, Germany and Australia.
The price of the magazine is currently £2.20 (1st June 2015) compared to the £2.50 it was in July of 2014.
Sourced from- http://www.greatmagazines.co.uk/bws/kerrang-magazine-package http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/asda-compare-prices/Newsagent/Kerrang_Magazine.html
Production process of the magazine
Date of publicationThis is the date of which the magazine will be released on to the public and customers. Kerrang! will now have an established order of work including the editorial finishing and planning stages.
Managing the schedule This is one of the most important stages of the process. For the magazine to be produced successfully the schedule must be managed precisely. The schedule must be made so that there is a back up plan in case any mishaps go wrong and you can always meet the deadline with a story if you do not make a schedule like this you will not make a successful magazine. Editorial and budgetary decisionThis stage is the process of the editorial team deciding what topics will be discussed in that weeks issue of the magazine. After deciding what will be discussed illustrations and photographs will be used for the magazine. After the images have been selected the finance team look at the invest available for them and how it will be spent on the magazine. Content Acquisition This is the most important stage above all others. This is because if there is no content there is no magazine. There are two ways that content can be collated firstly is using in house staff and the other way is to use external writers that are specialists in a specific topic. Sub-editingThis is quality control. If the company has an sub editor it is there job to:Checking accuracy of the facts providedWords are properly speltWorking on page layoutFollows the house style Page layoutTheir job is to make sure that all of the pages are in a specific house style and follow the running order of the contents page.Proofreading
Once the content stage has been completed each topic will be analysed searching for any grammatical changes before the hardened edition of the magazine will be released each problem is changed immediately and will only be printed once the team are happy every change has been made.
DistributionThis is the last stage of the entire process. The printing company have finished printing and the magazines are now getting ready for deliveries so they can be sold to the public. You can purchase Kerrang! From any news agents or major supermarkets such as Sainsbury's, Tesco, Morrison's and Asda .
