Magazine Analysis
- The company that produces the magazine is NME (The New Musical Express).
- I believe the target audience for the magazine is teenagers up to about the age of 20-21. I believe this because they are the type of people who go to more gigs and music festivals so they want to read up on bands so they know the latest news. Also because of the style of the magazine, it's very informal and looks as though it's made for younger people. Big bold texts are used and bright colours that make it stand out and make teenagers want to buy it. To people a bit older is doesn't matter as much what the magazine looks like more the stories that are published in it.
- Also the contents of the magazine are on certain music artists or venue's that are out at the minute that teenagers who are very interested in music would enjoy reading more and possibly understand more.
- The magazine costs £2.40.
- The magazine is published weekly since March 1952.
- The circulation was down 14.2% as they suffered double-digit year-on-year sales declines in another torrid period for the music magazine sector in the second half of 2011.
The Cover
- The title is called NME as it stands for The New Musical Express, however, NME fits in better with the style and genre of the magazine.
- The masthead/title logo is very bold and stands out well so the first thing you look at is the title, it is the biggest font on the page and is also black so it can be easily distinguished between the other fonts and background colours.
- There is no strapline on this edition of the magazine.
- The main image on the cover is a band called 'Muse' and there are three men crouching down with staring, interesting facial expressions that draw the customer into the picture as it feels like they are looking directly at you. Their body language is very open as if they have things to tell everyone as they look intriguing.
- The other images that appear on the front cover are a picture of the Rolling Stones and a picture of one of their band members. These images are on the front cover because NME is promoting their return with details of their comeback shows and classic posters.
- The content that is promoted by the cover lines are band reviews, interviews and returns/event details.
- The fonts on the cover of NME are bold and simple, more informal than formal as it uses a quite urban font style to reach out the the younger target audience. The colours used on the cover of the magazine are very outstanding and effective as orange, black and white go well together. The sort of language features and devices used are statements rather than information to shout out to the reader straight away so they would want to read inside the magazine.
- This magazine's cover isn't the typical style a magazine has, it has much more space on the cover and it has a much more simple and has a bold layout which is effective as it can be seen as more professional and stylish. The reason for this could be that NME wants to stand out as being different to other magazines when competing for sales in shops.
- The size of the magazine is very large in width compared to other magazines which is also original and makes it stand out as most magazines are taller than wide.
- There are 66 pages inside the magazine.
- There are 7 pages of adverts.
- The products advertised are categorized into shoes, new offers, events and technology.
- List of features/article topics in the magazine- bands, live events, tour dates, interviews, stories and reviews.
- There are 13 double page spreads and they are about bands including interviews, reviews and tour dates/upcoming events.
- There are no 'advertorials' because they label what type the page is in the top right corner.
- The magazine achieves a unified "house style" as they have a specific language which is quite a formal font style but there is some use of slang on some pages. The colour schemes are kept very dark and bland, there aren't many bright colours used.
- The house style is appropriate to the target audience as it is quite dark and serious which fits in with the teenage stereotype the magazine doesn't want to make the colour scheme too colourful as it could be interpreted as too young and happy for the target audience.
