Magazine Regulation - IPSO

 Magazine Audiences

Regulation

- Magazines, like newspapers, are self-regulated. Magazines may join IPSO or Impress - only.

- Impress is Leveson-complaint.

- MOJO has chosen to join IPSO, as have the other Bauer publications

Who are they/What do they do?

IPSO is the regulator for the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK. They hold newspapers and magazines to account for their actions, protect individual rights, uphold high standards of journalism and help to maintain freedom of expression for the press. They make sure magazines follow Editors Code, investigate complaints that breach this. 

Magazine Audiences and Uses and Gratifications Theory

Magazine Audiences

Targeting Audiences

- Weekly magazines target more working class than middle class. Paid for magazines with highest C2DE readership are Take A Bread, What's On TV, OK! and TV Choice - all weekly magazines.

- Quality monthly magazines target more middle class audiences. Paid for magazines with the highest ABC1 readership are the monthlies Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, etc.

- Most popular weekly and monthly magazines have predominantly female readerships.

- Magazines aimed at men have lower circulations. Most successful are Men's Health and BBC Top Gear. 

Social Class Table

MOJO Readers

- Mojo has fairly small circulation of about 68000 and a readership of about 138000 (figures from NRS (PAMCo). Audience is more niche than magazines such as Cosmopolitan (over 1 million).

Class: Mojo gains similar share of middle and working class readers (Their pitch to advertisers claims a mostly middle class audience, possibly based on circulation, however NRS suggests otherwise)

Gender: Mojo is four times more likely to be read by men than women.

Age: Readership is adult. Nearly two thirds of the readers are over 35. However, higher proportion of 15-34 year olds read magazines, compared to proportion of over 35 year olds.

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Personal Identity - Reinforcing 'authentic' music fan, fandom, artists as role models, values of a genre. In MOJO, they could be promoting an artist eg. John Lennon taking up a page to promote his album - audiences can see him as a role model.

Social interaction and integration - 'Mind blowers' section, creating debates. In MOJO, if in an interview an artists answers with a controversial opinion, this could cause debates and arguments (something to talk about).

Entertainment - Girls, attractive stars, gossip. In MOJO, the CD's they provide are a source of entertainment for audiences.

Information - Main function of MOJO to give us information. In MOJO, they could give information on artists' music releases, information on ticket sales for concerts, etc.

Magazine Revenue

Magazine Revenue

Revenue

Magazines receive revenue from:

- Circulation (production and distribution of magazines) (cover price - £5.75 for MOJO in 2019)

- Advertising (other products/music) (in MOJO, mostly live or recorded music, with some fashion advertising

- Mass advertising (advertising that g, eg. billboards, on radio

- Cross-promotion for other Bauer brands, such as Empire.

- Sponsored content and product placement, for example, 'MOJO listens to all its   music on Roksan equipment.

How do they use different funding models to generate income?

- The print magazine industry is suffering from falling advertising revenues and falling circulations as many of their audience go online. 

- Their response has been to diversify as much as possible - events are a good example of this - and to move magazines online.

- Sponsored content and product placement, for example 'MOJO listens to all its music on Roksan equipment'.

- Events, e.g. Vogue runs fashion events, GQ runs comedy events.

Online: www.mojo4music.com

What's available to audiences? 

- Magazines

- Subscriptions

- Merch

- Newsletter

- Articles

How does it engage with different people?

Engages a younger target audience through ticket sales and competition, also through merch

Magazine Ownership and NRS

  Magazine Ownership & NRS

The magazine industry is mostly owned by publishing companies, rather than the very large conglomerates such as Disney, Amazon and Netflix that dominate film and television media worldwide.

Most magazines are struggling in a competitive market so this media form (print) may be best managed by owners who specialise in the  print medium.

However, magazine publishing is globalised, like other media, with the most popular magazine brands (as measured by the National Readership Survey) in the hands of a few international companies.

Some publishing companies include:

Inc - US

Hubert Burda Media - German

Bauer - German media conglomerate (magazine, radio and music television)

Hearst Communications - US media conglomerate (newspapers, magazines, local radio and cable television)

How are magazine audiences categorised? 

Cosmopolitan - Categorised through segments - Gender, Age, Social Class, Family Size

How is readership and consumption measured?

Cosmopolitan - Measured through Market, Magazines and News-brands. 

Also separated through print, desktop, phone, tablet, etc.

How are audiences identified? 

"A high-quality face to face survey of 35,000 participants per year interviewed in home to collect print readership and demographic data."

"Estimates of the audiences for digital platforms sourced directly from Comscore and integrated with the readership survey by means of a specially developed fusion process."

"Where appropriate adjustments are made to the proportion of readers reading a brand both in print and on screen, based on observations from survey participants who had a specially designed Tracker App installed on their devices i.e. desktop, laptop, phone, tablet."

Bauer Media and MOJO Audiences

Bauer Media

1950s - 1960s

Melody Maker / New Musical Express

- Largely uncritical of musicians' output - everything was always good!

- Content: mainly charts and singles, gig and listings.

Changes in society in the 1960s with the arrival of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, drug culture of the 1960s - changed the nature of music and music writing.

Question - Is the promotion of music today driven more by the Industry or the Audience / Readership? 

I think that mainstream songs are more through industry (social media) and niche are from audience. 

MOJO Readers

Mojo had a fairly small circulation of about 68000 in 2016-17 and a readership of about 138000. (For comparison, Take a Break and Cosmopolitan have readerships of well over 1 million.)

Class:

- Mojo gains a similar share of middle class and working class readers.

Gender:

- Mojo is four times more likely to be read by men than women.

Age:

- The readership is adult.

- There is a greater number of older readers (over 35) than younger readers: nearly two thirds of the readers are over 35.

- However, a higher proportion of 15-34 year olds (a much smaller group) read the magazine compared with over 35 year olds (a much bigger group).

Conglomerate: A media institution/company that owns numerous smaller companies (subsidiaries) involved in mass media enterprises, such as television, radio, publishing etc.

Mojo is published by Bauer Media. This company owns more than 600 magazines including 2 other UK music magazines (Q and Kerrang!)

It has diversified MOJO brand by offering mojo4music.com online (since 2001) in order to reduce the risk of operating only one media form. Bauer media is diversified itself with ownership of magazines, web sites, radio stations and music TV channels.

What does this help to protect? 

It is protecting the brand through diversifying as it has another way of being accessed through different platforms in order to keep audiences interested and involved with the brand in case one platform declines.

Libel = a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation.

- Bauer also produced a digital radio station. This station was called Mojo Radio, and was transmitted on the digital television networks in the UK (Freeview channel 721 and Sky Digital channel 0182, though not Virgin Media) and online.

- The output of the station was based on that of the magazine.

- It was announced on 5 November 2008 that Mojo Radio would cease broadcasting on 30 November 2008, in order to save Bauer money. 

Bauer Media group is a diversified media conglomerate because they offer many different platform such as the Mojo website as well as different magazines, radio stations and TV channels such as Absolute Radio, Mojo magazine, etc.

Bauer Media group is a globalised company because they have a workforce of 11,000 employees in 17 different countries.

Entire Mojo Magazine - Hardcopy

MOJO Set Texts:

Pink Floyd

Theories involved: Reception Theory

Preferred Reading

- Audiences accept and agree with all of the messages within a media product.

Oppositional Reading

- Audiences reject and disagree with all of the messages within a media product.

Negotiated Reading 

- Audiences part agree / part disagree with the messages within a media product.

How many men? How many women? How many ethnic minorities? Is this a fair representation?

Front cover almost all men (5) and 1 woman in small photo at the corner, with no other ethnic minorities. The small number of women who are there are represented as very masculine, not sexualised, however this is an unfair representation as Mojo is portraying women as being unable to be in the rock industry.

The first 20 pages there are 55 men, and 17 woman, with little to none ethnic minorities (only 4); this isn't necessarily a fair representation due to the lack of diversity; they are focusing on one ethnicity/race instead of including others such as other religions, as well as the majority of images being of me, however this is mainly in order to meet the target audience of the magazine.

How might audiences interpret the same magazines very differently and how might these differences reflect both social and individual differences?

Older audiences such as 50 and above may interpret this magazine as very informative and interesting, focusing on the music and genre of the magazine as well as the different artists that are included. However, older audiences may also not regard the lack of diverse artists.

On the other hand, younger audiences such as teens and below may regard the lack of diversity and therefore may associate the rock genre with white males. This is because they are easily influenced by what they see and read.

How many main advertisements are there throughout the magazine? Where? What? Why?

There are 7 adverts on the first 20 pages, some taking up whole pages and some as smaller ads just on the corners of the page. Most if not all of these advertisements are promoting music, such as albums, bands, specific songs and other magazines. The majority of these adverts conform to the rock genre and artists in order to promote this style to fit the target audience. Cross promotion is done - Bauer media has promoted Empire magazine inside the Mojo magazine - they own both.

Articles? 

Range of articles to keep the audience interested and engaged as well as promoting other artists.

SA1 Test

 Original

Reflect and Perfect