Evaluation Part 2

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

I have decided that the media institution to distribute my magazine would be Bauer Media Group.

I chose this group due to their international success, it operates in 15 countries worldwide and would therefore give my magazine a great platform for sales, they have a worldwide circulation of magazine titles that amounts to 38 million magazines a week. Economically, I would be able to mass produce the magazine, this would allow me to keep the costs down which would benefit the reader by being cheaper.

Q Magazine is also owned by this institution. The indie music genre of this magazine and the great success that it has shows that they  have the right knowledge and basis for a highly achieving indie music magazine. As Q is the only indie music magazine that they own, I feel like there is a potential gap for another one to sell along side it. Although there could be some competition between the other indie magazine, my product still stands a good chance of selling well due to the fact that my magazine is slightly cheaper and is predominately aimed for younger people. 

The fact that the target audience of my music genre are very frequent users of technology is another good reason to distribute with Bauer as there is the potential to expand into television and radio, as Q did. This would give my magazine a better name for itself and widen my audience. 

I considered distributing with a smaller scale institution, such as the distributor of 'Shindig'. However these magazines are aimed at a niche market, and specialise in these genres only. I wouldn't sell as much with a smaller group and would have to increase the pricing, and wouldn't be able to afford offers and giveaways which attract more readers. 

According to the National Readership Survey's (www.nrs.co.uk)  statistics on Q magazine's readers, it becomes clear that their publisher is successful due to the large number of monthly readers that they have. Q has about 469,000 readers monthly. This implies that my magazine will hopefully too gain this level of readership. I also found that my magazine had a potential gap in the market because, despite it being an indie magazine as well, it appeals to a wider selection of the lower section of the 15-44 age range. Although this eliminates the older readers, it attracts more of the younger audience my magazine genre is primarily aimed at. Q includes older singers and artists whereas my magazine focusses on more regular, current singers. 

I would ideally stock this in a local supermarket, Tesco, for example. I chose to sell it somewhere like this rather than WHSmith, as it is much more easily accessible and there is so many of them. As people shop here regularly they are more likely to stumble across it as an impulse buy, also.  Having said that, regular readers can also pick up their monthly issue easily. Whereas in WHSmith for example, people go in there with the intention of getting a magazine like this, and my target audience are quite laid back they would like to be able to purchase it without any hassle.