Evaluation Q3

3. What kind of media institution (Bauer Publishing Group and Time Inc. UK) might distribute my media product and why?

There are two major publishing institutions in the UK and these are Bauer Publishing Group and Time Inc. UK. From researching them I found out that Time Inc. UK have quite a wide variety of magazines that among other things have genres including lifestyle, homeware, sports and fitness. They seem to direct more of their magazines at an older audience and only have a few magazines that would be stereotypically considered to be directed at young adults or teenagers, such as Mouse Breaker

Bauer meanwhile also has a lot of brands, over 570 worldwide, and is the biggest publishing firm in the UK. However I think that it seems to focus more on the entertainment sector of publishing which covers TV listings, music and film, but it does also go into a wider variety of magazines which includes both men's and women's lifestyle. I think that its target audience covers a big percentage of the available audience because it covers magazines like Empire, which has been described as the biggest movie magazine in the world, and motoring magazines like car and bike which are aimed at a predominantly male audience.

I believe that the closest magazine Time Inc. UK that covers the same target audience is NME because although it has a different main genre it is still a music magazine which isn't that dissimilar to mine. This is because NME covers rock and alternative, as well as its focus of Indie music, while my magazine has a main genre of pop but also covers rock as well.

Bauer on the other hand have several magazine brands such as Kerrang! and Q that come close of covering my target audience of teenagers who like pop and rock. This is because Kerrang!'s target audience is teenagers, and it has a similar target audience to my music magazine (Axis). I think that if my magazine went into publishing then its biggest rival would be the Q music magazine because it has exactly the same genres of pop and rock as my music magazine does. So Bauer already have magazines that cater for my genres as well as my target audience but I believe that they don't have a magazine that is similar in both respects which means that they could potentially still decide that they would publish my magazine.

I do however think that my magazine would benefit more from being published by Time Inc. UK because they don't have a magazine that is similar to mine. Therefore I feel that my magazine would be targeting a different audience for them so it would be worth their money to invest in my magazine because there is a gap in their market for my magazine that I think it could take full advantage of and could potentially become a successful music magazine that could well go on to rival Bauer Publishing Group's Kerrang! and Q, as well as other music magazines that target this target audience such as Rock Sound.