Task 4 Research Into Music Industries And Institutions.

Task 4A – Read the following history of the IPC Media and answer the questions at the end.

1) What types of magazine and target audiences has IPC been associated with over the years?

As it says in the summary of the organizations history, IPC has had a long and varied past, constantly branching out and reinventing itself in order to remain competitive against rivals, keep up to date with the modern readership and to remain popular and profitable, as a result, this media corporation has ventured into many different areas in order to provide something for everybody, so to speak. Over the years it can be clearly said there is a correlation in the area they seem to particularly concentrate on and that is the Lifestyle Magazine – although there is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes a lifestyle magazine but normally there is a clear divide between male and female lifestyle magazines and they normally concern such issues as; health and fitness, tourism, leisure, fashion and culture – all such areas IPC has ventured into examples of this include; Nuts and Loaded which are clearly male Lifestyle Magazines and Woman and Woman’s Own which are clearly female Lifestyle Magazines. As Lifestyle Magazines they will cover a broad range of topics many of which I have listed above as well as many new topics that would not have been as popular when they were launched in the 1930’s like for example celebrity gossip. So its clear to see over the years the IPC has had a constant involvement with the so called Lifestyle Magazine as many of them as I have already mentioned have been in constant publication for some eighty years, in addition to that, during that time many others have certainly came and gone. Not only do they appear to specialise in the Lifestyle Magazine that concerns a whole range of topics and issues but another prominent publication is leisure magazines for people with specific interests or hobbies and want to go into much more detail than the Lifestyle magazines do, there are a huge number of examples of such magazines linked with the IPC as they have cashed in on their popularity by producing vast amounts of magazines for different sports, hobbies and pursuits. Examples of such include; Golf Monthly, Home & Gardens, Caravan, Sporting Gun, SuperBike and Aeroplane Monthly. However in that short paragraph I have only identified the main types of magazines IPC has been associated with but there undoubtedly hundreds of others, furthermore there is one other type of magazine that has also been very prominent in the IPC’s history and I feel deserves a mention is the television listings magazine including; TV easy, TVTimes and What’s on TV. Such magazines as these have becomes immensely popular and have been essential in ensuring the IPC’s long history and success, for instance they launched What’s on TV in 1991 and it fought off fierce competition to become the UK’s best selling magazine, a position it still enjoys today.

So overall really is it unjust to name two or three types of magazines it has been associated with over the years when it has been involved with so many at so many different times, it’s the same story with its target audience, a corporation such as this ones success is underpinned by the fact it can create products that appeal to everybody as well as being able to produce products for a niche audience to fill a gap in the market.

2) Why might IPC be an appropriate publisher for a new music magazine? What sorts of genres of music/types of magazines might they be likely to publish? Why might

alternative publishers like Bauer be appropriate?

Its clear to see from the timeline and item that IPC are very commercialised and interested in making sure their products are very mainstream, ensuring it appeals to the largest readership possible thus turning them the most profit in terms of sales and advertising revenue. Throughout the late nineties and up to the present day ‘Hip-Hop’ has gradually become more and more accessible by a mainstream audience and many of the negative stereotypes that are associated with it have dissolved making it far more widespread in terms of popularity than it was say in the 1980’s. So for that reason I am sure IPC would be an appropriate publisher for my music magazine or any music magazine that specialises in the principal mainstream genres, although having said this I feel the IPC would only publish and market a

magazine based around a certain genre if they were sure there was a market and readership for it, otherwise I feel they would be more comfortable with a music magazine that deals with ‘pop’ music in general, again mainstreaming it even further and by expanding the magazine out into several genres it has more chance of being a success as there will be a potentially very large audience. However if the genre my magazine concentrated on was something more obscure perhaps a small pocket of the Indie genre it would be much more unlikely that a huge corporation like IPC would publish such a thing, as they appear to have a very direct focus on creating money making ideas rather than having a focus on what is put into their products and if the very small markets are being catered for. So perhaps in the case of Indie music a much smaller publisher may be more appropriate like for example Bauer, basically a magazine with a small market is best to be published by a small company so they can target it at a niche readership, thus expanding from the small areas that multinational corporations like IPC ignore.

Above you can see some differing IPC magazines including a television listings magazine, female gossip and fashion magazines and a magazine aimed specifically at people with certain interests in this case golf.

Again, you can see some of Bauer’s publications, some of which are the equivalent and rivals in the market to the extremely similar IPC titles, such as; ‘TVchoice’ and ‘What’s on TV’ are both similar television listings magazines, whilst magazines such as; ‘Bella’, ‘Take a Break’ and ‘That’s Life!’ are all similarly female orientated gossip magazines like; ‘Woman’ and ‘Woman’s own’

By George Parkin.