Case Studies of the Magazine institutuon

NME Case Study Introduction

I will be producing a case study on a music magazine called NME. It’s a publication on contemporary music and is the longest published and most respected music weekly in the world.

History:

NME, also known as New Musical express launched in March 1952. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart. In the 1960’s NME highlights emerging groups on their cover such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. NME sales were popular and were selling as many as 200,000 issues per week which allowed it to be one of the UK's biggest sellers. However in the 70’s NME failed to keep in line with the development with rock music. Alan Smith was made editor and the paper's coverage changed to a smarter and more modern music paper. Later in 1973 Smith handed the editor's chair to Nick Logan and NME was selling nearly 300,000 copies per week and was outselling its other weekly rivals, Melody Maker, Record Mirror and Sounds. In the 80’s NME was at risk of closure and the magazine were discussing weather to write about hip hop, which was fairly new at this time or stick to the rock genre. In the early 2000s the NME also attempted somewhat to broaden its coverage again, running cover stories on hip-hop acts such as Jay-Z and Missy Elliott, Pop stars winners Hear’ say and R&B groups like Destiny's Child, but as in the 1980s these proved unpopular with much of the paper's readership, and were soon dropped. From March 21, 1998 onwards, the paper has no longer been printed on newsprint, and more recently it has shifted to tabloid size: it has full, glossy, colour covers and has developed into more of a magazine format closer to the weekly teen pop magazines.

Key facts

Website: www.nme.com

Frequency: Weekly

Circulation: 40,948 (ABC Jan-Jun 09)

Readership: 388,000 (NRS Jul08-Jun09)

Launch Date: 1952

Target Market: Men aged 17-30

Advertisement

Some of NME’s advertisement includes:

- Pepsi

- Shockwave

- K-Swiss

- H&M

- Topshop

- Topman

- Levis

- XBOX 360

By looking at NME’S media pack, they have shown which advertisements are included in their magazines and how the advertisement has had an impact.

Facts:

- NME readers £152 on footwear per year, total readership spends £46m

- £532 is spent on clothes and total readership spends £189million

- £1229 is spent on audio equipment, total readership reaches £326m

- 52% of readers own a digital camera

- £66 on DVD’s is spent per year, total readership comes to £18m

- £108 is spent on games, total readership spends around £18m

Due to advertisement NME also found that r45% of readers spend more on clothes, 71% say its worth paying for extra quality goods and also 75% of readers say they like to try new drinks.

NME online presence

When looking at the NME website, it’s very busy and there are many images, texts, videos, titles and headlines running throughout the homepage. The website is very easy to access, www.nme.com

The website uses the same colours, text for certain headings. However, the website seems less creative, as you can se the magazine has bold, yellow lettering, slanted text and pictures, the website could have used bolder colours and different typefaces in allowing it to stand out more.

The website includes, radio access for the NME online radio, it also includes, blogs, videos, photos, reviews, news, festivals, artists, stores as well as new music. Within the store, online users can purchase items such a t-shirts, the magazine itself and newsletters. Tickets are also sold online to people. News is updated about artists, music, blogs etc; it incorporates advertising at the sides of the websites.

Samsung is advertised not only on the top toolbar but the right and left hand sides.

When looking at how the consumer experience differs from reading the magazine, I believe that having the magazine online, widens readers, people may not want to go out and purchase it, they have the comfort of sitting in front of their computer, as well as this they can literally hear what the magazine has to offer, musically, and this way they can visit the website often for their enjoyment. They can watch videos, interviews, be updated faster, be involved in blogs and look at reviews, as well as this it is environmentally friendly. With these points said, having a magazine with online presence can take away the original physical magazine. Also it can limit audiences to web users only. This would take away everyone who does not have a computer.

Conclusion

I have looked into the music magazine NME. I have discussed its history, facts, advertisement, its online presence and how it differs to the physical magazine. When considering at this case study, I believe it’s important for magazines to consider online and alternative publishing methods. I think it will help widen audiences, and help advertisement a great deal, when looking at the NME media pack, there were many facts and figures to support how successful advertisement has been, and advertisement online has the same effect.

By carrying out other publishing methods such as the internet, younger audiences will be attracted as the internet is very popular in this century and is in some cases the only way people will consider viewing the magazine, as the printed magazine may not be so popular with them. Although internet is mainly being used a lot by the younger generation, it can limit audiences if its published more towards the online presence.

I think having an online presence and publishing a magazine this way as well as a physical print is very effective as in result it helps meets target audiences, boosts advertisement and includes many other features which would not be possible for a print version of the magazine, e.g. NME radio.