Font Mood Board

For my font mood board I decided to use search for contemporary fonts on dafont because these look most like musical theatre type fonts and ones that you would see as being used for show titles, and other possible magazines and media products to do with musical theatre.  I selected a range of fonts and labelled them as the font they were because it made them easier to find to later when I come to use them. Furthermore that fonts that I selected has a musically theme and some are recognizable from musical shows. The ones that I will be most likely to use is Dirt2 Copper because it has fluidity and is quite bold so will stand out as a masthead, the other fonts that I will consider to use for things like the cover lines and other writing would be market deco and storybook this is because I think they are easy to read and would look good on the magazine. Furthermore I choose the other fonts like Showtime, Broadway Event, Cheerful Party and Budmo because they had the classic Broadway show look with the circles resembling lights, one weather I use these will depend on how they look with the different text and on the actual products. I choose many fonts that looked very straight and had that different look about them theses were Bellerose, Empire Straight, Park Lane and Dream Catcher, another reason why I choose to include these ones was because if choosing them for my products it would give it a totally different look and feel as they look more sophisticated meaning the target audience would probably change. 

Advertisers Mood Board

For my advertisers mood board I included lots of posters for different musicals that will be on in London`s West End because people reading the magazine would like to see what’s on in the West End without having to look very far, it is also a good way for them to advertise and get publicity. I also included companies to do with travel like the London Underground and transport for London, taxies, network and national rail, because many people that like musical theatre don`t live in London would like to know about ways they could travel around London and how to get there. This is the same for place like Ed`s, Planet Hollywood and Costa because place like theses normally do deals with show tickets therefore a musical magazine would be ideal for them to advertise and inform consumers of these offers. Additionally to the traveling I have included places to stay like the Hilton and Premier Inn because people travelling may want to know of places to stay and theses place may further offer deals which could be advertised in the magazine. I put a range of different priced hotels because this would emphasize that the target audience doesn’t stop at just one set of people and also everyone would most likely find hotels advertising useful. The other thing that I added on my mood board were theatre schools, workshops and events as these may use a magazine a chance for more publicity and also it’s a good way for consumers to find out and make the aware of what things are on offer out there. Furthermore I added logos and photos of ways to get tickets like the box office and ticket sites and these may advertise in the magazine to gain publicity and also the audience will want to know more information on where to buy tickets.

Target Audience Mood Board

My target audience is very all round and includes both genders, and any age. Therefore on my mood board I included things that would represent everyone. I choose a picture of the Beckham family, Ferrari and top end shops like Harrods, Selfridges, Ralph Lauren, Burberry because these would represent the more upmarket sector that like musical theatre. As musical theatres audience appeals to anyone the likes musical theatre I added pictures of groups of friends at university and high school age, families, couples and theatre art students that go to academies like Italia Conti, I choose these because this is who people would be most likely to visit the theatre with and also the types of people that would possibly go. Furthermore I included things that would appeal to the older generation like, the oldish shops (Marks and Spencer, joules), I did this because the theatre normally appeals to this sector of the target audience as it has for many years. Additionally to this one of the main audiences for musical theatre is teenagers and young adults so to represent these I added photos and logos of the typical shops that they would shop in like Topman, Topshop, Burton, and New Look. Furthermore because musical theatre appeals to all different cultures, countries and included several genres of music I represented this by flags, and a college of all different genres, this shows that musical theatre is a diverse culture and is not specific to one set of people, therefore I included logos of social media sites and music devices, also alcohol, instruments and gigs because these will appeal mostly all of the target audience of musical theatre.

Magazine Publishers

Magazine Publishers 

Time Inc UK

Time Inc UK was originally known as IPC Media and is Britain’s leading publisher of print and digital magazines, including 90 iconic brands. It was founded in 1968 and gradually expanded with London as its main Head quarters. It is currently owned by Marcus Rich whom is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), with Sam Finlay and Adrian Huges as marketing directors of advertising and market force.
They specialise in the mass market as their brands include a range of genres so there is something for both men and women. Their brands are classed in seven categories which are:

• Business and Technology
• Entertainment 
• Fashion and Beauty
• Food and Wine
• Luxury
• News
• Sports and Fitness
• Travel

Which include a range of magazines like:

• Horse and Hound
• In style 
• World Soccer
• Women and Home
• What's on TV
• What Digital Camera
• TV Times
• Super Yacht Business
• Soaplife
• Rugby World
• Cycling 

As well as these Time Inc publishes a few music magazines like NME and Uncut.

Time Inc’s audience is around 120 million people monthly for both print and digital including visits to websites. They also extend to Multiplatform, as you can access most of the magazines online, on mobiles and tablets as apps. Furthermore they have approximately 146 million followers on most social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. 

To further their brand more Time Inc hosts 400+ events around the world.


Bauer Media

Bauer media who are UK based joined Bauer Media Group in 2008. The Bauer Media Group which was founded in 1875 and are Europe’s largest privately owned publishing groups, their headquarters is Hamburg, Germany. 
Overall they own 600+ magazine brands, 400+ digital products, 50 radio and TV stations, they employ approximately 11,000 people in 17 countries. 
They too split their brands in to categories which are:

• Lifestyle
• Local business 
• Millennials
• Specialists

Their audience is spread across these four categories and have the majority market of print, digital, radio and TV in many countries, with around an audience of 22 million UK adults alone as there is something for everyone like:

• Angling Times
• Bike
• Car
• Closer
• Digital Photo
• Downtown Country
• Heat

These are just some of the published magazines along with these they also publish music magazines like, Kerrang and have radio and TV channels like, 4music, Absolute Radio, The Box, Cool FM, Kisstory and Metro Radio. Showing they focus mainly on the music sector but still have a range of genres suited for everyone.
Bauer Media have also made most of their products and brands available on multi platforms such as online, TV, Radios , mobile and tablets (apps).

Livingly Media

Livingly Media is an online only publisher and is a subsidiary of the company Aufeminn which was founded in 1999. Their headquarters in Silicone Valley, America. 
Their publications just like the other publishers are split into categories which are: 

• Lifestyle (Livingly) 
• Entertainment (Zimbio)
• Home Décor (Lonny)
• Fashion (StyleBistro)

From these some of the brands that they own are

• USA Weekend Magazine
• Elle Décor
• New York Times

Although they have an entertainment section, it is apparent they don’t specialise in music magazines. Furthermore they also own TV channels like ABC News and CNN. 



With being online only they pride themselves with being highly unusual and interactive, this feature also allows the publications to be shared around. Their audience reaches to 20 million + readers, and what is helping that is that they are available on multiplatforms like, online, on mobile and tablets.

Other magazine publisher include:

Future PLC

                    

Conde Nast


BBC Magazines

Magazine Industry Overview

Magazine Industry Overview 

The magazine industry has been lowly developing since it first started however since the 1950s where sales had peaked. Sales of printed magazines have been slowly falling. From the bullet points below you can see how much money is being lost by some of the major magazine publishers in the UK, over 13 years from 2000.

• IPC Media (Time Inc) – 49% Drop

• Dennis Publishing – 63% Drop

• Hearst Magazine UK – 32% Drop

• Conde Nast Publications Ltd – 9% Drop

• Future Publishing Ltd – 70% Drop

• Bauer Consumer Media – 41% Drop

These are just some of the magazine publisher in the UK together publishing around 8,000 individual magazines which are split into seven categories:

• Consumer

• Business/Trade

• Customer

• Staff

• Newspaper Supplements

• Part Works

• Academic Journals

Many of these have sub categories like the consumer magazine which includes things like women magazines and TV magazines. From the table below you can see that the top 10 magazines in the UK are all women’s magazine and TV listings. 

You can also see the rapid decline in sales this could be suggested by the earlier research into the Billboard magazine that more females are using technology to view the magazines than they are buying the printed copy. Therefore making the industry waste around 1billion pounds on printing costs. This can also be shown with that 1.4 billion of magazines that are now currently sold in the UK with 2.1 billion that were sold in 1970.

Overall there are around 3000 consumer magazine in the UK with 2.5billion pounds spent buy the consumers.

With the development of technology it is shown the many people are turning to the internet for advertising because they are trying to keep up with the latest technology. This means that advertising in the magazine industry has fallen to £397m making it even more difficult for the UK publishers to make money, along with the added battle that the market for UK publisher is much smaller of than that of the US with around 58m possible readers and the US having around 265m.

The other reason why we may see the trend in fallen sales of print magazines is that they too are trying to keep up with other trends like the rise in the use of technology, therefore they are resorting to apps where people can download the issue and read it on their smart phone and tablet.

The consumer magazines are the leading sector in the UK magazine industry and is said to be the worlds most sophisticated and competitive industry in the world, with 2 times more titles than France and according to WH Smiths around 421 – 602 new magazine launched annually. This sector also includes the music area of the industry, which is said to be the leading music magazines for the pop music genre as well as covering a lot of other genres and many detailed analysis of the UK`s music industry as well as international music. These are:

1. Q

2. Rolling Stone

3. Entertainment Weekly

4. Billboard

5. Blender

6. Alternative Press

7. Paste

8. Vibe

9. NME

10. Spin

This part of the industry is also seeing a downfall in sales of printed copies:

• Q: 58,980, down 8.7 %

• Kerrang: 37,603, down 6.5 %

• New Musical Express: 20,011, down 16.4 %

(Figures from 2013)

This trend will continue to fall especially with the introduction of more and more technology with the younger generation and some of the older generation, as it is more accessible and easier to get hold of an issue.

In 2015 there are around 151m retail copies sold, 210 new magazine launches and £282m Retail Sales, within the whole UK magazine industry.

Music Magazine - Case Study

Billboard Magazine Company Analysis 
A version of Billboard magazine has been around since 1894, and was thought of by William h. Donaldson and James Hennegan and this time music wasn’t in the equation and Billboard was initially just a bill posting service, it wasn’t till later when they decided to start publishing news about outdoor amusement parks. Then in the 1900`s when the motion picture industry was born they decided to start coverage on that. It wasn’t until the 1920`s when the radio was introduced that they started covering something to do with music, this however developed further in the 1930`s when the jukebox came into play and they finally decided to make Billboard into a magazine. They continued to cover outdoor amusement parks and in the 1950`s TV. They however had been publishing music charts since 1936 but it wasn’t until the 1960`s until it took on its modern form, cutting off from TV and amusements park division they changed their name to Billboard Music Week and were initially devoted to the music industry. In 1963 they decided to change their name once again to just Billboard, of which still stands today. From 1961 the magazine had been covering the official ranking of the Billboard top 100 songs which are still a main feature of today’s version of the magazine. Although from the 1940`s they have been keeping a record of music sales and air play.
Billboard magazine covers a wide range of genres that are suited to just about every person creating a wider target audience, some of the genres are covered in charts like:

• Artist 100
• Pop
• R & B / Hip Hop
• Country
• Rock
• Latin
• And many more

Billboards Magazine target audience is mainly teenagers with 68% being college graduates and 25% being post graduate’s, there is a small percentage that have an average age of 37. Their printed magazine is more suited to males with 77% being male and only 33% being female. However their online audience is 57% female and 43% male. Billboard have made there magazine available on many multiplatforms including the internet and apps that are available on a range of Apple devices. To keep in touch with their fans over the years they have widened their range of social media usage and now send out newsletters and are on a number of social media sites like:

• Facebook – 4.5m Followers
• Twitter – 2.6m Followers

• Instagram – 800k Followers
• YouTube – 560k Subscribers 
• Google + - 4.5m Followers
• Pinterest – 12k Followers

Furthermore with this they are constantly keeping in touch with their fans with following more than 12 m back and also by newsletters and a live twitter feed on their website.
Billboard also sponsor many events this creates more awareness of the magazine even though they mainly distribute within America they still have around 5% of international orders from countries like Brazil. 
Some events they sponsor are:

• Billboard Touring and Conference Awards
• Billboard Power 100
• Billboard Latin Music Conference Awards

As far as yet Billboard don’t have any music channels themselves but they have had their own TV programmes or participated in others.