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

In order to make a magazine successful it must get the right distribution in order to reach its target audience. I would like to use a major publisher, like 'IPC' as it is the second largest magazine publishing company in Britain and is owned by Time Warner. As my magazine is similar to Kerrang, in the genre and the target audience I don't think their publisher, BAUER would be interested in it however, IPC is BAUER's main competitor and doesn't have a magazine such as mine in its stable. 'IPC' had NME, a weekly, but not a monthly rock magazine for a predominantly female audience. This is because my magazine is so different to the one they already publish, which is 'NME'. 'NME' is a music magazine that is printed on newspaper like paper, 'NME's' readership is 76% men and the median age is 23 so I would not be competing with it as my target audience is predominantly females.

There are many reasons to go with a major publishing company, because they are so well known they have links within various distributors which definitely helps sales. Perhaps a disadvantage would be that they would have lots of control over the magazine and could control the content and style, but in some ways this is a good thing because they want to sell more magazines too, so any changes they make will be to benefit the sales of my magazine. It could also affect the volume of advertising in the magazine and its overall ideology. If I self published my magazine I would be able to make my own decisions but it would be very difficult to get my magazine in the leading retailers and therefore my target audience would not be able to access my magazine as easily. However, today the majority of youth media is online so self-publishing electronically is affordable and might be the best option.



 As well as selling my magazine in shops like 'WH Smith' and 'HMV' I will have a website for my magazine, this will allow readers to access the magazine from almost anywhere. The internet is a growing technology that has become a necessity with most teenagers, by putting my magazine online will widen the audience that read it. Also I will advertise my magazine of 'Itunes' which is a leading music down loader and is becoming increasingly popular.