The target readership of the Q magazine is younger adults and it appeals to mostly men, in fact about 66% of Q magazine's readership is male. It's thought that about 84% of the readers of Q are 15-44 years old. Therefore this shows Q’s ability to make the magazine appeal to a wide range of ages and as well as the different social groups, which are often referred to using the National Readership Survey (NRS).
Q does this by featuring currently popular artists such as Adele as well as classic artists like John Lennon, they even feature artists that are deceased as some issues are dedicated to them. For example John Lennon to celebrate his 70th birthday, and Amy Winehouse featured on an issue after her death. The main readership of Q magazine seem to be those who like either alternative or indie music, since these are the two genres that it seems to focus on most.
Having looked at a Q music magazine I noticed that there seem to be a lot of advertisements for gigs which suggests that a lot of its readership would be interested in going to them, or attend them regularly, so this information is important because it tells them about their favourite artist's tour dates so that they can book the tickets.
Rock Sound
This magazine is different from Q because it has a smaller target audience of pre-dominantly men (they make up 72% of Rock Sounds readership). It also has a smaller age range of 15-24 years which shows how much dominance it has in this sector considering how many people read it.
Teenagers would buy the magazine because it is a great way for them to keep in touch with the latest fashion. Staying connected is a very important part of their lives, teenagers value getting constant updates about everything, and the ways readers connect with Rock Sound is print, the internet and social networking. 82% of their audience use at least two of these ways to stay connected with their favourite artists which shows that they are willing to spend time and money on this hobby, which is reflected in the magazine's £3.99 price tag.
The circulation of the magazine has been steadily decreasing in recent years, as shown in the figures of 16374 being circulated in 2009 which went down to about 15000 in 2010, and then went down by almost another 800 to 14227 in 2011. This shows that the readership is decreasing as more and more people turn to the internet as an easier source of information rather than going out to a shop and buying a magazine.When comparing the genres of Rock Sound to Q, I found that Rock sound focuses on Rock and Pop Punk, and barely mentions Indie music at all, whereas one of Q magazine's main genres is Indie.
NME - New Musical Express (published by IPC)
NME is a indie-rock magazine that has been running for a very long time in Britain, far longer than Q and Rock Sound. This means that it has been able to build up a large fan base since it was one of the first music magazines, and is still running.
Like Rock Sound NME is very centralised around men, with them making up 69% of it's total readership. As shown in the pie charts, the majority of the readership are ABC1 which is reflected in the fact that over half of the readership of NME are working full time, however, since NME is now free all social groups can get it. Students make up a big proportion (29%) of the readership also, which shows that they are interested in the magazine.
The magazine targets mainly an audience who are very into music and like to know more about the artists. This shows that music plays a big part in their life, since as with Rock Sound they like to go to lots of gigs. Today, NME is free, which is an effort to increase the circulation of the magazine. Therefore even though this would decrease the money they make the magazine can survive off of advertising.
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