Analysis of Bauer and IPC

Bauer and IPC are the two dominate UK magazine market. Bauer is a German multinational cross media company which is an independent company and IPC Media an American Time Warner Group Conglomerate. It has a different range of magazines, including home style and music magazines which will be my main focus Bauer dominate the UK magazine market with statistics of 9 Bauer magazines are sold every second in the UK however 28 million adults read a Bauer titles over 7 countries including Mexico, Spain and the United States. Bauer do a lot of different type of magazines a lot of them are well known music magazines and with the help from Bauer’s power and money the advertising for the magazines helps the magazines meet their demographic audience in the form of an "imaginary entity" as Ien Ang suggests which is either an ideal self or ideal partner.

The general audience for these magazines are between ages of 16-24 and possibly 25-34 (an example of this is Kerrang! Is more the age range of 16-24 where as Q is a much more intellectual and less coloured magazine only using whites blacks and reds on the cover which would be aimed at the older generation of 25-34 ). The demographic audience of these magazines are younger audiences and this can be seen through the use of bright colours and flashy covers and bands as an older audience will have a more dull aesthetics using browns and dull tones of colours.

Readership is vital for a magazine company to succeed because through readership bands offer advertising to customers as the customers will want to see the interviews, reviews, posters of the bands without realising they will tell their friends and they will buy it to read it and this chain reaction is another form of advertising and this is the key funding from magazine companies so if they are getting it free through word of mouth this will benefit this greatly

“Bauer Verlagsgruppe is managed by four generations of the Bauer family. The Bauer Publishing Group has grown into a worldwide publishing company. The Bauer Publishing Group comprises 238 magazines worldwide in 15 countries, as well as TV and radio stations.”

Kerrang

The one of the magazine that is published in the UK by Bauer is Kerrang. I will now discuss the history of Kerrang. The noise a drum kit cymbal is a connotation of the sound Kerrang and I have reason to believe this is why they decided to call a mainstream general rock and it is an unusual work which works to make the magazine sound interesting and more attractive. Back in 1981 is when the magazine was first published to a niche audience however through progression of thrash metal and hard rock from the 80’s and 90’s aided this magazine to appeal to a more mainstream audience through the age range of 16-24. the reason I believe the sudden change in market is because as rock music progressed more people became fans of it and rock is always changing by some bands using other types of instruments that would not originally been used in a rock band such as synthesizes and violins. Kerrang have expanded so much through the 30 years and now days have there own radio station, website and even music channel. The net average of circulation per issue of Kerrang is around 50,000 and from this is established that Kerrang is a successful magazine.


IPC Media is a UK based magazine publishing company they are a conglomerate of the company owned by Time Inc, part of Time Warner Inc. They are very successful and powerful company at around 26 million adults reading an IPC produced magazine. They produce many different types of magazines such as women’s beauty magazines men’s magazines, games magazines, music magazines and sports magazines. IPC also own digital properties, like the magazines they produce websites, so that their readers can view parts of the magazine online and find out when the next issue is released. This process is named synergy because they both advertise their magazines and their websites within each other. As well as being a company IPC splits into 5 different areas and these are IPC TX, IPC connect, IPC ignite, IPC Southbank and IPC inspire hiring around 2,200 employees.



Bibliography:
Wikipedia.org - Bauer Media Company