What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The distributor of my magazine would have a very important role. It is the job of the distributor to attract the target audience. This is done through advertising, marketing and then distribution to sale outlets. Because of this I would ideally like to use a leading publisher/distributor. IPC produces over 85 media brands, with their print brands reaching almost 27 million UK adults and their online brands collectively reaching 20 million users every month. So I feel this would be an appropriate publisher for my magazine, and then I could use its distributor, MarketForce.


I feel this would be the right one to use because although it already carries a music magazine, NME, my magazine is different as its USP is that it’s aimed at women. NME's readership is 76% men and the median age is 23. This means that not only is my core target audience a different sex but also a different age so therefore my magazine will not be in direct competition with NME. IPC's magazines are read by almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men, which means they are obviously skilled at advertising, especially to women. NME and my magazine could even advertise each other because they sometimes cover similar music genres. Also IPC will already have experience in distributing music magazines, which would be very helpful.

‘Institutionally’ my magazine would probably be quite similar to NME and Kerrang, despite the fact Kerrang is published and distributed by Bauer. My magazine could be advertised on TV and in other IPC magazines to increase it’s exposure to teenagers. It could then be marketed using similar techniques such as a free CD’s and music downloads. It could then be sold in obvious places, such as WH Smith, supermarkets and newsagents, and more specific places like HMV.

My magazine is marketed at a niche core target audience, which is to say its specific target audience, teenage girls who like alternative music, has not really been targeted before. However if you look at my target audience as more general, which it could be as this type of music, and therefore magazine, could appeal to anyone, then it becomes more of a parrot publication. This is because the genre of music covered is covered by quite a few magazines, like Kerrang, and therefore in this sense it is not the first magazine of its kind.