3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

For my magazine, I decided it would be for the pop genre. The reason being there is a gap in the market for a new pop magazine offering lots to its audience. Magazines like ‘We Love Pop’ have been around for a few years and sales of the magazine are falling therefore a new pop magazine like mine ‘Scenes’ launches the pop genre into the magazine world again.

My target audience is one based on older children and young to mid teenagers; this means the price needs to be reasonable enough for a person (who is likely to be unemployed) to afford on a regular basis and for them to come away from reading the magazine feeling satisfied. I think for that reason my magazine would be best distributed in a shop like WHSmith and others similar to this. It could also be sold in smaller stored that are more music dominated rather than everyday items such as HMV where there is a more concentrated mass audience. Another form of distribution could be online as it is easily accessible for many and as there is more technology involved with selling and advertising nowadays, this is a perfect way to get my magazine seen by many.

Following on from my point about using the internet as a way of distribution, I think that by using more up to date technology to distribute my magazine, it will be seen more by my particular target audience. As the audience is young they are likely to be going on websites that are new so that they keep up with technology themselves. My audience is in the mainstreamer band so they are constantly making efforts to find the new technology and use and become competent at using it also. If these magazines are put on the same websites they will be seen by people we want to see it. Similar to the film app IMDB, there could be an app for smart phones and androids so people could download the magazine off their phone. People are living busier lives so to have the chance to buy a magazine on the internet and not having to go to a shop will save a lot of time and effort and would perhaps really interest someone and intrigue them and then they could perhaps tell a friend and then they would tell another friend and by word of mouth you could have more sales in no time.

The availability of the magazine is important in the distribution therefore I think a monthly edition is better because people have the chance to catch up on the whole month’s pop gossip and news before another edition is released. Also, subscriptions could be set up so that customers can plan ahead to when they are going to get the magazine. This creates less of a panic to buy the magazine before they become unavailable.

After analysing the various distribution techniques, I think the best way to distribute my magazine is on the IPC. The reason being is that it is the biggest distribution company, and although the young audience I am targeting may not know this company, they will be satisfied with the service it offers.

Also, IPC is very well known to magazine publishers so the connections there should help to get the magazine published well and distributed effectively as well.

IPC also distribute magazines such as NME, Woman’s Own and Teen Now. As they are used to publishing and distributing magazines for women and teenagers they will be familiar with distributing for my target audience.

Before deciding who would distribute my magazine, I personally felt it was necessary to look at Bauer Media in depth. However, I didn’t choose Bauer Media purely because they don’t distribute pop magazines therefore I thought by using IPC, my magazine would be distributed effectively. Initially we first looked at Egmont publishing, however we felt Bauer media was the company we want to distribute out magazine.