Magazine research

Bauer
Website: http://www.bauer.co.uk/
Bauer is the largest privately owned publisher in Europe, publishing in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Additionally, Bauer publishes in the United States and Mexico. Bauer is a mainstream publisher.

Bauer’s brands are predominately aimed at working class women. They own women’s weekly’s like Bella, Take a Break and that’s Life. They also own women’s interest magazines that are Eat in, Take a Break’s fate and fortune, Spirit & Destiny, Take a breaks fiction feast, Take a breaks seasonal magazine’s and That’s life seasonal specials. They also own TV listings magazines and puzzle magazines. This company produces mainstream magazines because even though their target audience is mainly women, they are produced for a large audience and they produce puzzle magazines for a wide audience of older men and women.

IPC Media

Website: www.ipcmedia.com

IPC Media is a mainstream publisher. They produce over 85 iconic media brands. IPC Media's print brands reach almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men. That is almost 27 million UK adults. IPC Media's online brands also collectively reach 20 million users every month.

IPC Media groups its current titles under five magazine divisions: Connect (women's weeklies such as Now Magazine and Look), Inspire (leisure and specialist), Ignite! (men's lifestyle and entertainment), South Bank (women's lifestyle and home interest), and TX (portfolio of television titles). In addition there are: Ideal Home; and Market force, the UK's leading magazine distribution business.

IPC Media's magazines are very diverse, so they publish magazines aimed at both men and women of different social classes. There magazines aimed at men are for example, Country Life, Horse & Hound, Rugby World and Decanter, as well as lifestyle brands including Nuts, Mousebreaker and NME. Their magazines aimed at women range from Look, Now, Chat and Woman. IPC Medias also own TV entertainment brands including What's on TV, TV Times and TV & Satellite Week which are aimed at both sexes who enjoy television.

BBC Magazines

Website: http://www.bbcmagazines.com/ 

BBC Magazines are a mainstream publisher as they publish many different genre of magazines for many different age groups.  BBC Magazines is the magazine publishing division of BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation. They publish adult magazines like BBC Countryfile, BBC History Magazine and BBC Music Magazine. They also publish cooking, wildlife, gardening and car magazines as well. They also publish Top of the Pops magazine aimed at teens and more magazines aimed at children and pre-school children. This means that they cater for a large amount of people of different ages and interests.

Development Hell

Website: http://www.developmenthell.co.uk/

 Development Hell is an independent media company based in Islington, London. They are a niche publisher as they only publish two magazines, The Word and Mixmag. The Word is a music magazine aimed at late teens to early 30's and Mixmag is a dance music and clubbing magazine aimed at people in their late teens to early 20's. In April 2009 Developmentell acquired DontStayIn.com, the world's biggest clubbing social network. Development hell ave provided consultancy for some of Britain’s biggest publishers such as Dennis, Future and IPC and were hired by Paul McCartney to produce the souvenir magazine for his 2002 World Tour.

contents page analysis

The contents page uses many different images that relate to the genre of music this magazines readers enjoy, which is rock. These images have been constructed to appeal to the target audience as there are images of rock and punk musicians and the pictures are also very dark and the people in the pictures all look very sub duded as there is no one smiling or looking generally happy as most rock musicians are associated with darkness and sadness. There are ten different images used in the contents page which fills the front cover. This images have been used to illustrate the different articles the contents page are referring to in the magazine.

The colour red is used predominantly in the front cover. This may have been chosen because it relates to the magazine logo being red so the reader gets a sense of familiarity in the magazine. This colour may also symbolise passion, meaning the magazine is very passionate about its genre or it may symbolise anger as rock stars are often associated as being aggressive and intimidating. All of the font used in this contents page is serif. A house style is being developed because the colours, images and font styles are all similar on the front cover, contents page and article.

The information is organised in a way to make it easier for readers to find a particular feature or article. This is because all of  the information is organised into different sections which are features, the Q review and regulars. This is very useful to new and regular customers because if your looking for a review of a certain album etc. you can locate that section on the contents page to swiftly and easily find the review your looking for. This suggests that this magazine is very organised and well produced as their front cover is so.


There isn't any promotional features in the contents page as such promoting any brands or it self, but they do promote the artists that they are interviewing or featuring etc. For example, this magazines main interview for this issue is with Cheryl Cole and they reveal her new music and when it is released.


The logo of this magazine is located in four places in the contents page, it is located on a image of the magazine front cover in the top right hand corner of the first page, there is two images of their logo on the bottom of the two pages which are really small and their is a large image of their logo on the top left hand corner next to the title 'Contents'. I believe they are very dominant because where ever you look on the contents it is highly likely the reader will see an image of the Q logo. This means the reader will constantly recognise the magazine and it also makes the brand label more memorable.

Cheryl cole article analysis

    

      

   









The choice of artist in this feature article is Cheryl Cole. She is a popular pop star, a member of the successful girl group, girls aloud and she is on the judging panel of the most popular music talent show on British TV, X Factor. Using Cheryl Cole for this article suggests they have a very wide range for a target audience. A vast number of young girls, young women and even older women like Cheryl Cole. Even young men and older men like her because of her attractiveness. Also many people in the fashion world like her because of her fashion sense, many females want to dress and look like her and fans of music like her because of her successful singing career. This all suggests that this magazine is constructed to appeal to a wider audience and branch out from its usual audience of rock lovers to fans of other genres.


The language used is very informal as it is not meant to be a serious interview or interrogation as this would make the interview more uncomfortable and less enjoyable for the reader. The article is constructed to be more like a comfortable chat between the interviewer and Cheryl Cole, although there are some very poignant quotes from the artist. For example she says “I don’t know what I look like any more. Do you know what I mean?” This shows that she does feel quite sad and gives the receiver a very personal look inside Cheryl Cole’s mind. The reader also knows this is an important quote because they made this quote stands out by putting it in red, larger font and put in a text bubble, separate from the article.


The tone used by the magazine to address the reader is much like an informed intelligent fan. This is because he is able to give the readers intimate details about Cheryl Cole because he has prob ally thoroughly researched her and has had the opportunity to speak to her face to face so he can tell the audience details about her they may not already know. For example he writes " She is the only person who has topped both FHM magazine's world's sexiest woman poll and a list of Britains's 'most-requested teeth' from cosmetic dentist's.

The style of text used for this article is serif. This shows that this magazine is sophisticated and well presented because the style of the writing is also very sophisticated. The magazine may also have chose this style because they may want to link the style of the text to the classiness of Cheryl Cole. The way the interview is laid out is a mixture of facts and opinions and questions and answers. I think they chose to do it like this because it is more enjoyable to read rather than straight questions and answers.   


There is a mid-shot of Cheryl Cole wearing a revealing outfit and a top hat that covers much of her face. This makes her seem more mysterious as we can't fully see what she looks like. The choice of outfit shows she is confident in her appearance and it shows she isn't just the family friendly person we see on the X-factor, but she also has a much more adult side to her. I don't think that this article requires any prior knowledge because it gives us a lot of details and facts about Cheryl Cole, so if there is any thing the audience doesn't know this article will inform them on it.