This research excersise was a joint activity
Genre: Alternative music magazine
Frequency: Monthly
Country: UK
Publisher: Bauer Consumer Media(Emap) -1986
Circulation: 94,811
First Issue: October 1986
Price per issue: £3.90
Subscription: 22,798, (19,097 being in the UK and republic of Ireland)
Target Audience: For people in their 20s and 30s and the older generation, those who are looking for a different mode of address, sophisticated people, a magazine which is different to other music magazines in terms of content.
Mark Ellen and David Hepworth founded the magazine because they felt it was a niche market as there wasn't a magazine for the older generation who were still buying CD's.
Q is different to other magazines due to its high quality photography and printing.
Was originally going to be named ‘Cue’ but the single letter ‘Q’ seemed more prominent in newsstands.
Contains a wide review section, contains interviews and playlists
Promotional gifts are given away in certain issues of the magazine such as CDs and books
Q has a history of association with charitable organisations
Q launched a radio station in June 2008 but is only available on digital TV
Q has its own music channel
The Q awards are held every year
Below is the link fo an ABC (Audit Bereau of Circulations) article about Q magazine:
Media Ownership Q magazine is owned by the publishing company Bauer, it is a profit motivated publication. Bauer also owns Bella and Eat In magazine as well as many other popular publications. The magazine represents the rock/alternative genre. Q is digitally promoted via the internet and has its own website;
www.qthemusic.com. Viewing the site online enables the decoder to frequently check for music updates and news with the use of advanced and new technology, e.g. the i-phone, i-pad and computers.
Q is very different to other music magazines in the way of including reviews about books, DVDs and new albums. The media product is more male orientated although both genders of most likely to be young adults in their early 30s. Q aims to attract the decoder by making its style of magazine different to others due to the glossy front cover and the more sophisticated presentation whereas another music magazine such as the NME aims to engage with a younger target audience with an ordinary cover.
As Q is a monthly magazine the decoder feels more fulfilled with the purchase of the magazine rather than getting a weekly magazine where the reader already knows what is going to be contained within. Therefore Q offers more gig advertisement and brings more selection of upcoming events. Another way that the encoder engages the reader is by sometimes offering a CD or perhaps a book with the magazine, making the decoder want to purchase the item even more so.
Cross Media Convergence
Q is connected with other associations such as its own radio station, television channel; it holds its own awards ceremony every year and has been known to participate in charitable organisations. The significance of cross media convergence is signified through the terms synergy, distribution and marketing.
Horizontal Integration - This term explains the joint co-operation of two or more companies working together in order to maximize profit and overall readership.
Vertical Integration – Companies are owned by one major company and link back to one another.
Conglomeration – Conglomeration is when a large company owns a series of smaller companies although work in different fields work together to gain readership and profit.
Synergy – The term synergy applies when a major company has extended additions linking from the main product e.g. Books, CDs, T-Shirts etc.
All of the above terms relate back to Q magazine. As it has previously been mentioned, Q holds its own awards ceremony where other leading music magazine companies attend. This leads to the idea of Q being in competition with other music magazines in particular and as a result having to deal with one of the magazines many threats. Other threats are as follows:
New Technology – Technology in the world today is becoming more advanced so therefore magazines are frequently accessed through the internet and can be viewed online, with the help of new devices such as I-pods, phones and I-pads. Q as an online source is under threat due to the lack of decoders willing to pay out for the media product.
Environmentalism – There is pressure in using the amount of resources as global warming has affected the media industry through the need of paper for printing. Magazines are full of excess material for the use of advertising and is a paradigm of consumerism.
Illiteracy – The younger generation cannot relate to new technologies as they are unlikely to have access to it e.g. I-pods and I-pads. Those who are unable to read also raise issues so they don’t purchase the magazines therefore the decoder is deprived of their musical tastes as well as the media company facing a decrease in profit and readership. Another issue raised by illiteracy is the need for changing the layout of how the media text is produced and therefore affects the amount of profit gained; this is known as dumbing down. This leads the encoder to reduce the amount of intellectual material within the magazine itself. Furthermore an additional issue raised is the mode of address through the use of anchorage when images for example are captioned for the decoder to fully understand the hegemonic intention. The encoder also has to emphasise the use of language and the tone of the magazine as the younger generation will be able to relate to this form of text. However because Q is a sophisticated and professional magazine, language doesn’t necessarily need to emphasised as the social stratification figure demonstrates the higher class.
Distribution Costs – The resource demand is much higher now than before, increasing the need for distribution methods. New content is launched via the internet as this is how decoders would rather access the magazine rather than buying the magazine itself. The impact of Q’s success will be effected due to the decline in profit but more and more people are accessing content online. After studying the Marxist and Pluralist theories, it is evident that Q is represented as a media product that gives the decoder a diverse choice of what they read so therefore the decoder controls the content.
Rate Card
Below is the rate card for Q Magazine:
This is a graph showing Q’s advertising rates. This graph was taken from the NRS (National Readership Survey) website.
This graph represents Q’s readership and circulation from January-June 2001 to July-December 2008. It appears that the circulation for Q has dropped during the years but peaked slightly in 2005, meaning that popularity of the magazine has declined during a certain period whereas the readership in 2008 has increased slightly.
Q differentiates from other music magazines due to its variety of reviews including books, DVDs and re-issues of albums. Other magazines don’t offer plugs such as books, CDs so this an advantage to the publisher compared to magazines such as the NME or Kerrang! There is more substantial reading material in Q than most other music magazines so intellectual individuals are more likely to read it therefore Q attracts readers who are well educated. It has been known that Q can only get exclusives and interviews that no other music magazine can. The price of the magazine is £3.90 per issue and is supposed to attract the upper class of the ABC scale, known as social stratification; it is assumed that the reader would probably have a job of high income.
