Wednesday 13 April 2011

Music Magazine Research


Music magazines are a global industry, which has grown over the years. Each magazine includes photographs, interviews, music news, album and single reviews and also concert reviews.

Music magazines are very popular throughout the world, with NME being the most popular magazine in the United Kingdom. It was first published in 1952 by editor Krissi Murison and has published weekly editions ever since. It has a total circulation of 33,875 and even has it’s own website. The website enables readers to view magazines online, read the latest music news and even look at the music charts. NME also has it’s own radio station and TV channel, making it a very diverse company, not only publishing magazines but also getting involved with other types of social media as well. NME also host a music award night every year celebrating musical talents, they even sponsor up and coming bands in the UK in their NME tours. NME had a rival throughout their existence and that magazine was ‘Melody Maker’ which was even older and was founded in 1926. However due to falling circulation and the introduction of Internet based music news it went into liquidation and ceased publishing. Other popular UK music magazines include Kerrang!, Q and Mojo.

In the United States the leading music magazine is Rolling Stone, which not only focuses on music news but also politics and popular culture. The magazine was founded in San Francisco in 1967 and is edited and published by Jann Wenner. It is a bi-weekly magazine, which is published every two weeks. The magazine got its name from the Muddy Waters song. The circulation for the magazine is at a staggering 1.4 million making it an even bigger success than NME back in the UK. Rolling Stone also has it’s own website which covers particular music news, politics news and also blogs. Not only is the company online via its website but it also has social media pages on the likes of Myspace, Facebook and Twitter. Many bands have appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone with The Beatles appearing the most on a total of thirty covers. The first cover was given to music legend John Lennon. Rolling Stone also surfaces overseas as well; it has international editions, which are available in nineteen different countries. These countries include, Argentina, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and India.

The leading magazine in India is ‘The Big M’, which controls a huge amount of the industries market share. It is a monthly music magazine, which is edited by Shamoly Khera. The magazine has grown into a phenomenon in such a short space of time and now has a circulation in over thirty cities around India including Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, etc. In its magazine it likes to focus on up and coming Indian acts as well as leading Indian artists. These bands include Indian Ocean and Motherjane. The main objective of this magazine is not only to sell as many copies as they can and become a well known household name in the magazine industry but to also help promote and advertise up and coming Indian artists, to help put them on the map and to help them breakthrough into the global music industry.


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