Target audience research

What genre of music magazine are you going to be constructing? 

I will be constructing a magazine with the genre of pop, I have chosen this genre because I like the music, I listen to it daily and it is popular and current. 

Will it be for a mainstream or niche audience? Why? 

It will be quite mainstream as it will appeal to people who like current, new pop music which is in the charts at the moment. Therefore my magazine would appeal to a mass audience as pop is seen to be conventional and is enjoyed among many people. It will cover different aspects of pop music; styles including urban, dance and rap as well as different artists so it will be interesting for more people rather than if it were just focused on female solo artists for example.

Is it similar to any existing products or is it going to be different? Explain how and why.

My magazine will be similar to ‘We Love Pop’ and ‘Top of the Pops’ magazines however this is more of a child’s/ young teenager magazine therefore I will make mine more sophisticated so it will appeal to my core reader. ‘We Love Pop’ has a target audience of 13-15 year olds which only covers a small range of age; I need to extend this so it appeals to 16-21 year olds. Also ‘We Love Pop’ appeals to more females than males due to its bright feminine colours and content, so I need to ensure it appeals to both genders to cover a wider audience.

Who will the core reader of your magazine be? What will their age ranges be? What will be the gender mix?

The core reader of my pop magazine will be young people and mainly teenagers and young adults between the ages of 16-21. The magazine will be suitable for both males and females due to the colours and the content must be suitable for all of the ages between 16 and 21. It will cover current, popular artists and bands that are in the charts which will appeal to this target audience as they listen to music most days on the radio (e.g. Capital FM) and will be interested to read reviews and opinions on the latest tunes.

Who will be your primary and secondary audience?

My primary audience is the core readers who are the teenagers and young adults, between 16-21, these are the people who are most likely to purchase my music magazine. My secondary audience will be (drop-in audience) the core readers friends and family who probably won't buy the magazine but will read it, therefore there content must cover a wide range of things to appeal to them as well.

What will be the socio-economic mix?

The socio-economic mix refers to the JICNAR scale, therefore my music magazine will mostly appeal to Grade E which includes students, who will be my core readers therefore it must be suitable for them and cannot be too expensive. However young adults could be from the socio-economic group D, C2 or C1, they are not as likely to be in Group A or B. The secondary audience may be from either A, B, C, C1, C2, D or E socio-economic classes as they may read the magazine from another person e.g. their friend, however the main focus is aiming my music magazine at students and young adults (core readers).

The JICNAR scale

Group A (Professionals)

Upper middle class, e.g. Barristers, Doctors, Executives

Group B (Managerial)

Middle class, e.g. Bank Managers, Teachers

Group C1 (Non-Manual)

Lower middle class, white collar workers, e.g. Office Workers

Group C2 (Manual)

Skilled working class, Blue collar workers, e.g. Car Mechanic, Machine operators, Construction workers

Group D (Partly Skilled)

Semi or unskilled manual workers, e.g. Assembly line worker

Group E (Unskilled)

Casual workers, dependent on state benefits, students