Evaluation: Distribution

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As you can see, here is my magazine and a special 80s edition of Q magazine. As I have said previously, my magazine is influenced by special editions of music magazines when they are about old music, however instead of a special edition, I will bring my magazine out every month and it will be about old music every issue. Smash Hits magazine published a Michael Jackson special when he died in 2009 and they included their old style front cover, which they used when they first started making the magazine. It interested me and I wanted them to make these kind of issues monthly.

However, because not many magazines like mine are on the market, I would choose BBC Magazines as my distribution because, as I found out through my research, they don't publish many music magazines anymore. They used to publish Smash Hits until they stopped making it and Top Of The Pops, however that genre of music is mainly pop for young girls, whereas my genre is classic pop and rock; the audience that my magazine would attract would be completely new for BBC Magazines and also my magazine wouldn't have to compete with other magazines that are similar, because the BBC mainly publish magazines about homes, food and lifestyle. Also, the BBC have a good history in selling magazines; Top Of The Pops is a well known magazine and sold a lot of copies, therefore my magazine is more likely to do well if the BBC were the distributors.

If I chose Bauer Media Group, which publish Q magazine, I wouldn't benefit from it as much as I would if I went with BBC Magazines, because Q magazine is slightly similar to mine; we both use similar colours, therefore my magazine wouldn't stand out that much. Also, our audience is similar, therefore the company wouldn't benefit from publishing my magazine as they would have two magazines competing against each other. By choosing the BBC, the company and myself would benefit from it as there wouldn't be any competition with other magazines in the same institution.