Target audience for music magazine

I have based these ideas on the NME readership details per issue. A total of 388,000 adults read NME per issue. 250,000 people of the socio-economic groups A, B and C1 read the magazine per issue. People of A, B and C1 groups are people like high ranking professionals, middle ranking professionals and "white collar" (office) workers. There were 137,000 readers from the C2, D and E socio-economic groups. These groups are people like skilled manual workers, semi and unskilled manual workers and people getting state benefits. 339,000 of the readers were from the age group of 15-44. Only 49,000 of the 45+ age range were readers. In total 296,000 of the readers were men. 91,000 of the readers were female. These results show that the general the average reader is a male in the A, B or C1 socio economic group, and is generally between 15-44 years of age. The link for where I found this information is: http://www.nrs.co.uk/toplinereadership.html, in general magazines.

I have also based my target audience on the readership profile of NME. It showed mostly male items like phones, cars and trainers. It also showed pictures of things like festivals, topman clothes and hairgel. However, the fact that topshop is shown on the readership profile suggests that girls are also targeted to read the magazine. The information shown says that 69% of the readers are male, and 31% female. It also says the average age of readers is 24. There are also statistics about how much they spend on clothes, dvds, games and how much time they spend on the internet. Their results showed that 94% of readers used the internet. Therefore, the general reader is a male, who is of the average age of about 24. They are interested in games and fashion, and also enjoy going to music festivals and gigs. I will use these results to form my own target audience.

Using NRS I have also looked at what the target audience for Kerrang. A total of 417,000 adults read Kerrang. 239,000 of these were in the A, B and C1 categories. These are people like high flying professionals and office workers. 178,000 of these were in the C2, D and E categories. These are people like skilled and unskilled manual workers, students and the unemployed. 339,000 were in the age range 15-44, but only 49,000 were aged 45+. This shows that Kerrang magazine has a much younger audience, and doesn't really have any appeal to the older generation. A total of 290,000 of the readers were men, and 127,000 were women. Using this data I can see that Kerrang magazine is mainly targeted at young people between the ages of 15-30. I can also see that although the main gender target is men, it also appeals to women as it has a lot more female readers, compared to NME. The majority of readers were in the A, B and C1 socio economic groups, as they would have the disposal income to buy the magazine.

I have decided to use the same target audience as NME. Using the demographics that we have learnt in class, and looking at readership details and the readership profile for NME I have decided on my target audience. My target audience are going to be in the A, B and C1 socio-economic classification as most of them will be professionals, around the age of 24. They will be aged 15-44 in general; however, there will be a small percentage of older readers. Similarly, although most of the readers will be male, a small majority will be female. In psychographic terms, they will generally be individualists, who are people who are wanting to be different. They may also be succeeders, who have enough money to buy the magazine regularly, but do not need to show off their wealth to other people. They will read this magazine as they will want to be different by listening to different music, and going against the normal pop music that is on offer. They will shop at clothes shops like topshop and topman, and will often go to festivals and gigs like Reading, which is not aimed at teens. Also, they will play computer games, and use the internet regularly, but will not have a huge interest in movies. Overall, I think that the readership profile I have created really fits with the style of magazine I have designed, and the magazine would be something that my target audience would be interested in buying.

I also did some interviews with a range of members of my target audience, asking them what kind of music they liked and if an indie magazine would make a good idea. The feedback was generally positive, with most people saying that there was a need for a new indie music magazine. I found it really helpful having this kind of feedback, as I can then tailor my magazine for my target audience.