My Evaluation - 3) What kind of media institution will distribute your media product?

There are many media institutions that could possibly distribute my magazine.

A Major Publisher could distribute my magazine, many key magazine use the ‘big’ publishers in order to distribute their magazines.  Major publishers have ownership and control of a large proportion on the market, and therefore are powerful magazines, this is a theory discovered by Karl Marx. One major magazine publisher is called EMAP. EMAP distributes many magazines, and a few music magazines including; Kerrang, MOJO and Q, they also distribute More, Grazia and Closer. Another major magazine publisher is IPC, IPC distributes few music magazines the main music magazine they distribute is NME. IPC also distribute Now, Look and Marie Claire. What you can notice about these magazines is that they are very familiar. Comparing the two different distributors the same two do not distribute the same type of magazine. For example the magazine NOW is very similar to the magazine Closer, they are both filled with celebrity stories. There are bullet points on the front cover of the main story, pictures in at least 3 of the 4 corners of the magazine of other stories, the date, price and website are all situated above the magazine title. These two magazines are practically twins and are in competition to sell the most magazines because they are so alike, because of this it would be ludicrous for IPC or EMAP to distribute both of these magazines because they are in direct competition with one another. If you review the difference in the magazines that the different companies distribute, you realise that there isn’t much difference between the magazines that are distributed by different companies, but that there is a difference between the magazines that the same companies distribute. Therefore, if I did go down this route I would need to find a major publisher that does not have a title that is in direct competition with mine.

Another way I could publish my magazine would be through a small publishing house. Small publishing houses publish niche market magazines; these magazines have a small target audience. A magazine such as ‘Little White Lies’ is published through a small publishing house company - this is due to its niche market audience. It is a niche market because there isn’t many consumers who buy the magazine. However some major publishers do cater for niche markets such as fishing magazines. Unfortunately independent publishing houses are not able to compete with major publishing houses. The independent publishing houses cannot access the same level of horizontal integration, this is because small publishing houses do not own other ranges of different media. Although the internet does allow some possibilities, I don’t think it would be relevant for my young demographic.  Unlike the major publishers who have access to horizontal integration as they are more than likely to own more than one range of media. So if my magazine was published by a major publishing house it would be easier for me to advertise my magazine due to the horizontal integration that exists in major publishing companies.

I could also use self publishing which could be done on paper or online. However to make my magazine successful now-a-days I would have to publish it online. This would be a good way to distribute my magazine as now we are in the 21^st century many people are constantly logging on to their computers/laptops and accessing everything via their phone/internet. This would benefit the environment because I wouldn’t be using paper, so therefore I wouldn’t be cutting down trees. As well as this the process of buying the magazine wouldn’t take as much effort as it would be with you on your computer, therefore there would be no requirement to go out. Furthermore due to the access of internet on the majority of people’s hubs (phones, iPads, notebooks etc) in this day and age it would be a lot easier to have access to the magazine if it was on the internet. The consumer of the magazine wouldn’t have to carry any extra materials around as the magazine that they wanted to read would be already on their person downloaded on their hub, so whether they are on the train, the bus or on the move they will have the magazine by their side. Another problem with publishing my magazine online would be that I would have to completely change the form of my magazine; this would be very time consuming. I would be happy to do this if it would definitely mean that my magazine would be popular but it doesn’t. Another drawback of self-publishing my magazine is that having a printed version of the magazine makes the magazine a bit more formal, more impressive. As I weighed up the pros and cons I believe that the cons out-weigh the pros.

Nevertheless I have decided that the media institution that I want to distribute my magazine will be the major publishing house, because I think that my demographic is wide enough to be distributed in a big way.

Although getting my magazine published via the internet would be a great, easy option for my demographic, my demographic in my opinion are too young to be walking around with iPads, notebooks and upmarket smart phones. This is the reason why my magazine will not be distributed via the internet, (although I will have a website.)

Although the girls will not be travelling everywhere with one of these hubs to ensure that they have the internet on them, the consumers will be able to carry the magazine around with them. However the magazine will have apps for the older consumers of the magazine to engage in the magazine through digital media, this would be available on the mobile device Blackberry as many young girls have a Blackberry enabling them to keep in contact with friends and family. 

A reason why I chose to get IPC to distribute my magazine was because there is a gap in the market for young, girl music magazines, and luckily IPC do not distribute any young girl magazines so they should easily be willing to distribute my magazine. Although EMAP also do not distribute any young girl music magazines I think that IPC do such an excellent job, especially the NME which is the best selling music magazine of all time and because they have the facilities and the resources that smaller, independent companies don’t.

My magazine will hopefully have a big following online, due to the massive increase of social media. More than 500 million active users are on Facebook so hopefully many people will become fans of my magazine and view the magazines Facebook profile. Due to web2.0 many people have a lot better access to the internet and are able to converse in using the internet. On a recent survey it was found that most people during their leisure time spend more of their time on the internet, when before the web2.0 most people were constantly watching TV.

When distributing my magazine I will have to ensure that everything goes through the advertising standards authority (ASA). Because my demographic are children I have to be extremely cautious about what they are exposed to. The additional incentives cannot mislead my demographic of how big they are, or what the capabilities of the products are.