Additional Magazine Research

Another popular music genre magazine that is popular today is 'NME' magazine. This is a British magazine in origin and is widely successful. It is published weekly and had a total circulation from July to December 2009 of 38,486. It was first published in March 1952 and it was the first British paper to include a singles chart.
It is the most associated with popular music culture and festival culture. The genres of music that it features are diverse, dependent on what is popular at the time. It also has a vast target audience, of young adults, teenagers and fans of all genres.

Here is an analysis of a typical NME magazine cover and the features that it uses to grab audience attention and appeal to its target readership.

This cover relies heavily on bright, eye-catching colouring of the graphic to grab attention and the connotations imply that the music industry is a lively, exciting and involving industry, which would particularly appeal to a target audience of young adults and teenagers, or anyone interested in the new modern music scene.

The use of a white background allows the black and red typography to really stand out and draw attention. Bold, sans serif fonts are used to make a dramatic impact and advertise the exclusive music stories that the issue includes. The masthead font also looks condensed, to be more professional in appearance. The main image used takes up most of the 2nd and 3rd thirds of the page, forming the main focus of the cover. Also, it is a medium shot, with direct eye contact to attract you to the magazine. The image represents iconic music stars of the time and this draws attention. An effective use on this page is also that it uses a wide range of typography to make the page stand out and reflect the ever changing trends of the modern music world. The cover lines focus on short, snappy wordings and heavy emphasis lies with promoting gigs, attracting a wide audience of young people to the magazine.
Puff space is relied upon on this cover to promote competitions for the readers, which also generates attention.
The iconic NME logo forms the main masthead, which is easily and globally recognised, and does not interfere with the image placement, which gives it a professional aesthetic aspect.
After looking closely at this cover's presentational elements, I think that it is a highly successful cover, as it presents the music interesting in a modern, interesting and exciting way, generating a wide target readership, resulting in high circulation figures.