Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography

COMPETITION

Other magazines in the same genre or from the same area are competition for my magazine. To make sure that mine would succeed in the real world I would need to make sure that I had something that made me stand out from the rest.

I will look at two other music magazines and determine what makes them stand out and what I should do so that my magazine is different enough that it would be picked rather than any of the others.

THE TWO I WILL LOOK AT ARE:

Monthly, UK based, music magazine

Under The Radar

Commentary on the Indie music scene

UNDER THE RADAR

Under The Radar is an Indie magazine that advertises that it has 180,000 readers per issue. To have such a large reader base, we must look at what makes this magazine stand out.

One thing that makes it stand out is the sheer amount of content within each issue. If you take a look at one of the contents pages, you'll be able to see that there are a lot of articles and a range of topics.

In this issue, there are over 100 pages.

They have to do this because they only publish an issue 5 times a year. This is also a feature that makes them stand out. However, during the waiting time - people will get bored of waiting. If my magazine were to be a lot like this but update and publish with more frequency, it would threaten my competition - as people would prefer a more regular magazine.

I am considering that some people would like having five issues a year as these are packed with content and they cannot afford to purchase too many magazines. It costs about $6.50 locally (in the States), $7.50 in Canada, and $15.00 internationally. As my content would be sparser if I updated more frequently, I would need to adapt prices to match. If my magazine was monthly, then that would be just over twice frequently (2.4x exactly) so I'd need to half the price. About $3.25 per issue and about half the content would make me a suitable, more frequent alternative.

This magazine already ships internationally so, if I wanted to keep up with it on a global scale, I'd have to do the same. However, just like UTR I could focus on my home area as well as shipping globally. People like articles specific and relating to them, that's why UTR is best known in North America, the area it focuses on. I could focus on the UK.

My focus would be on UK Indie Fans.

If I could build a readership with this specific group of people then I could build a 'niche' readership.

Niche - 'a specialized but profitable segment of the market.'

Catering to a niche T.A could limit me and my magazine though and limit my profits if the group is too small and too specific. That's why it would be a bad idea to make my T.A into Indie music fans from Leicester or Indie music fans from a specific state.

I believe that if my T.A was Indie music fans from the UK, this is a large enough group that it would be a safe bet and could be a profitable bet.

I do not know any other UK based magazines that are very popular, so this sets me ahead of the competition. I'd still be competing on a global scale with Under The Radar and other magazines though.

Q magazine has a hard to define genre but it branches into Indie from time to time. The real reason that I've chose it for competition is more to do with the fact that it is a monthly UK based music magazine - which is almost exactly what I was leaning towards producing. Differences in genre already set us apart but, due to the fact that they feature such a wide range of musicians, it's likely that a large portion of my T.A may also enjoy Q.

The magazine features new releases, reissues, music compilations, film and live concert reviews according to its Wikipedia. They produce a range of content. As I've already recognized with UTD, if I want to have any hope of competing with these other magazines, my contents page must be full and my front page must promise a lot of content and a lot of articles.

They manage to get interviews with big celebrities. To compete, I need to have big names and recognizable faces on my front cover. As this is not a real magazine I am creating, I cannot realistically call in a real celebrity for a photoshoot and interview but my model can play a fictional character who is quite popular. The language used can also suggest this.

If we say, 'Eve is a rising star," or, "Leia is new on the scene," then we are saying that this is not likely to be a well known celebrity. If I want my model to play at being a well known celebrity, I must talk about fictional events that would have put them in the public eye. Their interview could be about an award they won.

An Indie pop band in the public eye at the moment is 21P. My model's journey to success could mimic theirs. Originally, in my brief, I said that I'd want this magazine to focus on new and unfound talent and I still do want the magazine to do this. However, for the front page and my main article, I will have a more popular face as this is the only way I can break into the industry and build a readership. I will mention undiscovered artists in the contents page and in coverlines on the front cover.

What will set me apart from Q is the genre difference. Whilst we may both be based in the same area, my magazine will focus purely on Indie Pop. I think this will be enough but I could offer more to guarantee that I stand out.

I will offer free song downloads and other freebies from unknown bands - which they would offer as they would want to build an audience as they need people listening to their music in order to succeed. It's worth noting that UTD uses this in some editions of their magazine also.