in-depth analysis

What institution owns your magazine?

NME magazine is currently published by IPC Media, the UK’s leading publisher of consumer magazines and websites. Over 26 million people read an IPC magazine, and over 350 million copies are sold each year.

What effect does this have on the content?

The magazine is a certain genre which makes it successful as people know and like the genre. It also makes the magazine well known as people will associate that certain genre of music to the magazine.

Let’s discuss the flat plan – what have you learnt about the magazine?

The main layout NME is that it is similar to a newspaper throughout most of the magazine. There is a lot of use of the colours black, white and red, along with bold headlines and articles that have been written in columns. As well as this the inside pages of NME have a newspaper feel in comparison to the normal glossy magazine pages used in most other magazines.
It also often uses a full page photo for some articles, and then the text will be layered over the top. 

Discuss the mise en scene – what impact does this have on the audience?
They have used a simple colour scheme throughout the magazine, and kept the fonts the same. As they have kept the colour scheme the same throughout the magazines people may then start to associate those colours and font with NME magazine. The costumes that are used are often very punk, leather jackets, tight jeans and metal studs.

Who is the target audience? How do you know this?

The average reader of NME magazine is a 24 year old devoted music fan who loves the cutting edge culture of rock music. I found out that 69% of the readers are male, with 52% working full-time and 29% still studying, and typically the reader enjoys going to gigs and other events in their spare time. The standard reader spends nearly 19 hours per week on the internet.

What do they offer their readership?

They don't offer their readers anything tangible for example makeup, posters etc. However they do offer

exclusive interviews with current and up coming artists that other magazines may not have.

What elements would you like to ‘borrow’ for your own magazine?
I would like to borrow their layout ideas as it is organized but not boring. The reader is able to see where everything is and it is easier to read and make sense of.