During my research, I found out several pieces of information about what the readership profile will be. My magazine will follow the same readership profile as the NME magazine follows because i'm using the same music genre and style that the NME use. My specific target audience will be indie-alternative, however i may add other genres in there aswell therefore im not limiting myself, in addition to that a wider the diversity in genre's then it will appeal to more people which will increase popularity and sales. The target audience will be 16-36 year old people, which satisfies both genders for the people who enjoy indie alternative. The people who enjoy this type of music enjoy attending music events such as gigs and festivals.
The average age of an NME magazine reader is 20-25, however, i believe that people below that age share the same interests of the magazine of the people that are 20-25, therefore i will aim my magazine prominently at the ages 16-36. The average age of the NME's reader is 25 which would statistically fit into the social demographic group of E which is made up of students or the unemployed and generally don't have much money so the price would need to be low but the quality needs to be high and the ideology needs to meet the criteria so it keeps the reader interested,
The target audience of the NME magazine is men between the ages of 17-30, however i will aim at both genders so i'm not limiting my audience which would deteriorate sales and readers of the magazine.
The magazine will be read by a variety of different social demographics, however it will ultimately be A,B,C1 and E, this varies from bankers and lawyers to teachers and graphic designers to nurses and office supervisors to students and casual workers, therefore i have a extremely wide and diverse target audience which will improve sales and popularity, my aim is to make the magazine modern and share the same ideology as my target audience.
A music genre is a conventional category that establish some pieces of music as being a part of a set of traditions and values that the certain type of music has conventions which relates to the specific genre. There are many different types of genres which appeal to different types of audiences, the specific ones im going to discuss are, indie-alternative, rock, pop, house music, rap and blues. I'm going to discuss these and summarise them and then chose which genre i'm going to base my magazine on.
Indie-Alternative
Indie alternative is a diverse genre and has a lot of different types of sounds associated with it. Bands such as Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes and The Killers represent the indie- alternate genre. This particular genre is very popular amongst teenagers because of the wide variety of sound that comes along with it and the huge amount of bands which are popular at the moment would be placed into the indie-alternate genre. This genre would be beneficial to use because it already is a favourite amongst my target audience which is students, however this genre also appeals to the older generations aswell, so my magazine would mainly focus on my target audience but would also appeal to others aswell. Also this genre has a particular fashion so i would be able to annotate the magazine with the conventions of the genre so it would instantly appeal to my target audience and they would know straight away that it was an indie-alternate magazine.
The rock genre is also very popular mainly because of the varying in sound and the visual appearence of the rock bands such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Who, which are all huge names in rock and even though were mainly focused in the older times but still remain very popular amongst people today. However this may not be a main choice of mine to focus my magazine on because although it is still popular, it isn't as popular as some music genres and the youth of today aren't as interested as classical bands such as Led Zeppelin because they are drowned in the pop culture of today so they aren't interested in rock so i may struggle getting my magazine to the right target audience. However this genre sometimes could relate to indie-alternative so i could link the two together to get a conjoint target audience because both the youth and the older generation are interested in indie-alternative and rock so it would be a perfect combination.
Pop music is short for popular music and is usually preferred to by the younger audience because the pop stars are seen as role models. This particular genre has changed over the years as the preference in music has changed, many years ago pop music would have been seen as oasis, blur, the stone roses etc, however now pop music is consists of more musically robotic artists such as Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus, who appeal to specifically young girls because they are more commonly seen as role models to musicians. However as this genre is very popular it would be a safe option as the pop conventions appeal highly to their specific target audience, for example the magazine would consist highly of the role models who the audience love and would have mainly bright colours and the feature stories would mainly be about the role models to attract the audience. Overall this option would be considerable because of the popularity of it but this genre wouldn't appeal to my target audience as my target audience is mainly students and young adults, a pop based magazine would be seen as childish.
Rap music was mainly created by djs in the late seventies, it usually consists of a recurring beat pattern, sometimes made by the rapper themselves or a producer such as Dr Dre and Kanye West to which they rap about certain topics which other genres may not cover such as racism etc. This style of music is extremely popular upon teens so i will also consider this genre because of it's popularity. Furthermore some indie-alternative acts such as Jamie T feature rap in his songs so again it would be an option because of the wide fan base of people who love rap. Also it can also be classed as pop music so based on popularity, it is probably one of the most popular genres, which would make it a strong choice to feature on my magazine due to it's high popularity. Also the figures of rap are extremely recognisable and have interesting stories tied into them and are huge celebrities and are massive talking points such as Kanye West and his announcement on running for presidency which is huge topic that everyone is speaking about globally at the moment. Overall because of it's strong links with most genres this would be a strong genre to use as my magazine.
Blues music is hugely popular in both the older generation and the younger generation, the blues feature highly in a lot of different types of genres because of the amazing sound it generates. The blues has a lot of huge figures which are known by everyone such as B.B King and Eric Clapton who are known primarily because of their blues music, also indie-alternative and rock bands such as The Black Keys and The Strypes base their sound highly around the blues and are highly popular because of it. Therefore the blues are popular throughout many genres it could be the focus of my magazine due to it's popularity, however it is more commonly appreciated by the older generation and i don't think it would be popular enough to be the main focus of my magazine.
Soul music is a popular genre that consists of a variety of rhythm, blues and gospel music, dating back to the 50s and it was originated in the United States. It has many links with rap, indie, blues,
house and pop so it is incredibly versatile and is included in many types of genres. Major figures such as Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder and Eddie Kendricks come under the soul category which are amazingly popular even today. Soul is mainly aimed at the older generations and we don't hear much of it in the modern generation apart from if an instrumental of an old soul track gets featured in a rap song etc. However some modern day singers are clearly inspired by the genre of soul such as Amy Winehouse and Ariana Grande by the way they soulfully sing and base their vocals around various soul tracks. However this particular genre wouldn't satisfy my target audience therefore i probably wouldn't want to base my magazine primarily on soul however the genre could feature on my magazine as a short segment.
Ultimately, I'd like the primary focus of my magazine to be around the indie genre, mainly because it's my personal favorite genre because of the versatility in the genre and how different indie bands produce different sounds based on their inspirations that they base their sound on. However i may consider adding additional sub-genres such as rap, soul and rock in the magazine because they are also some of my favorite genre's and are also heavily popular at the moment and all of the genres are subjects which I'm interested and know a lot about so i would have a lot of strong ideas.
