Research into Institutions that Distribute Similar Products

NME Magazine:

Owned by: Time Inc. UK

Other magazines owned by Time Inc. UK include magazines targeting a mass female audience such as Woman's Weekly, Pick Me Up, Chat, TVTimes. They also own a range of magazines that cover specific interests, and are mainly directed at men, such as Rugby World, Cycling Weekly and Amateur Photographer although Amateur Photographer is arguably non-gender specific.

Time Inc. UK don't publish any other music magazines, which I think is unusual as their other areas such as the ones that target women cover such a broad range and it would make sense to maximise their profit by covering music magazine genres other than rock/metal. However, this also means that they may be interested in a new magazine that would help to fill the gap in the market, although mine is also of the rock/metal genre, so it would be better to aim for a publisher who has either no music magazines or no music magazines of that genre.

Source: http://www.timeincuk.com/brands/#iconic-brands - 09/11/15

Classic Rock Magazine:

Owned by: Team Rock

There is only one other magazine owned by Team Rock which is Metal Hammer, although they also own an internet rock station, Team Rock Radio. Their target audience is very niche, as it only covers an audience who is interested in the rock/metal genre, so for this reason, if this company were to publish my magazine, I would have to acknowledge the competition against Metal Hammer and Classic Rock and make sure that my magazine is more unique and covers a wider range of sub-genres. I think the target audience is also most likely an age range of 16-20+. Team Rock don't publish any magazines of any other genre, making their distribution and potential reach quite small.


Source: http://www.teamrock.com/commercial-terms?ns_source=global&ns_mchannel=desktop&ns_campaign=footer-tracking&ns_linkname=commercial-terms - 09/11/15

Imagine Publishing

In my research I also found a publisher that may be more likely to benefit if they were to distribute my magazine. Imagine Publishing are UK-based and publish magazines of the creative, video game and computing genre. For example, they publish Advanced Photoshop, Digital Photographer, Retro Gamer,  Play and Smartphone Essentials. I think they may be interested in my magazine as they don't currently publish any music magazines, so mine would be a way to gain a larger audience and perhaps more interest in other magazines they publish as well.

Sources: https://media.info/organisations/names/imagine-publishing - 10/11/15
http://www.imagine-publishing.co.uk/at_a_glance - 10/11/15

How this research will influence my magazine:

From this research, I now know that I will have to aim for a publisher who distributes magazines of a similar genre to mine- as although it is preferable to be the only rock/metal music magazine on the market, I know that this is unrealistic and there will always be competition. I will therefore make sure that my product has unique qualities that appeal to more niche sub-genres as well as the mass appeal of the genre in general that magazines like Kerrang! tend to go for.

For these reasons, I have chosen Team Rock as my distributor. Although Imagine Publishing and Time Inc. UK were both equally good choices, I thought it would be a wiser decision to choose a publisher with an already well-established readership. This also means that although they already cover the genres of rock and metal magazines, they may be more likely to be interested in widening their potential reach by distributing my magazine that covers a wider range of sub-genres for niche audiences as well as mass, so it would give them a more well-rounded distribution. To set my magazine apart from the rest, I will aim to make my content more unique while at the same time keeping the main conventions of the genre to keep my target audience consistent with Team Rock's likely audience of 16-20+.