NME MUSIC MAGAZINE ANALYSIS

ALIVIA OSBORN

YEAR12

AS MEDIA STUDIES

Create a powerpoint presentation of your chosen Music Magazine commenting on use of codes and conventions, writing style, representation, target audience

NME MAGAZINE: CIRCULATION • Circulation: “more than 300k copies are distributes nationally through

stations, universities and retail partners” – 15,830 (ABC jan-jun 2014) (print and digital editions)• Paid circulation: 15,000- 250,000• Underpaid circulation (free version in 2015) 300,000 • Subscription: now free magazine- you just pay for the postage• Charge to cover postage and distribution is from £9.00 • To buy from a shop in 2014: £2.50

PUBLISHER: TIMES INC. UK• Times inc. uk• publishing director: Jo Smalley • editor: Mike Williams (Times inc. uk) has a large portfolio selling 350million copies each yeartimes inc uk founded in 1963 owner of times inc, uk: time warner

NME’S FIRST PUBLISHINGFirst publishing of NME was in 1952 as “accordion times and musical express was bought by London music promoter Maurice Kinn for £1000 15 minutes before it was due to officially close. Was relaunched as NME (new musical express) Was initially published in a non-glossy tabloid format on standard newsprint!

GENERAL• know this is a mix of indie and rock due to front

cover & contents page names.

• writing style is very casual- page58-61 looks at live reviews. goes through gig song by song- all different writers. • pages 56-57 fill the page- interview and review

of peace’s gig in birmingham. photo taken from this gig. shows the atmosphere at a peace gig

FRONT COVERHouse Style:NME Masthead usually in top left hand corner with date going up the left hand side.Font colouring: usually red, white and black.

Positioning of central image preferred in the middle but not always. Quite arty how the photos are taken.

Usually no secondary images- catchy taglines get the readers interested. Simplicity within the front cover.

Specific Cover:• Shot type: very odd- main focus of the central image

is man (Ian Curtis) but he is very far away. Very stylised due to the table and everything focusing around Curtis. All the anchoring text is on the table because it links to the central image.

• No secondary images: all cover lines in red do NOT link to the image (house style of NME)

• The angle- odd. Taken from one end of a table- looks up you’re looking up at Curtis. Seeing him from a different angle- like the unseen notebooks.

• Slightly tweaked photo? Very grainy. Could be due to the fact that it’s an old photo that was noisy and scanned into a computer- personally think it has been made grainy to give it an old look.

• Multi-coloured strip underlining name: draws audience attention to who this magazine is specifically about.

Contents Page:THREE COLUMNS SPLITTING INTO:

REGULARSFEATURESBAND LIST

Masthead within magazine title, shows what magazine this is to someone who’s caught a glimpse within magazine

Bandlist:Magazine catagorised into bands in alphabetical then the page numbers rather than other way around

Housestyle: NME’s typical layout for contents page

Colourscheme:HOUSESTYLE OF NME: Black, white and red.

ADVERTS WITHIN MAGAZINE• purely adverts either to do with nme events, music or large brands. • inside the front cover: small band advertising album • throughout: nme advertising their own events. • one page full of different bands advertising tour dates. • back page: apple advertising new products. • links to nme because it’s a music magazine.• target audience: people probably with money due to apple advertising- know

it’s a popular magazine too- big money advertising in it.

RADAR: DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD• COLOUR-SCHEME: Strict to the colours of black,

white and red (flows throughout the magazine)

• WRITING STYLE: Clearly sticking to rest of magazine. Chatty yet formal and focusing purely on Indie music; whether it’s a band, festival or the story of a band.

• Image relates to texts due to the fact it’s the band Public Access TV- article is about them. Ratio of text to image is 50/50 half photo half text.

• Very gender neutral. Depends whether you like the band or not.

HOUSE STYLE/WRITING/INTRODUCTIONS• no introduction- very informal scene set for

this magazine• goes straight into a q and a page.• chatty and laid back• Can go formal- when introducing a band (like

on Radar page) it becomes formal so audience knows all information.

LAYOUT WITHIN THE PAGES

• each page varies- majority have three columns with an average of 3 to 4 images linking to the text within different ways • no specific layout kept throughout magazine, shows no house-style to the

layout.

AUDIENCE: I THINK..• age: 14-35- people just getting into music, very into

music and has the money to spend to go to gigs, buy merchandise and albums• no particular ethnicity- depends on the person of who

would buy it • social class: middle/upper class. could be lower but

would say people with money. adverts tell that these are people with money-iphones advertised.• No specific gender. Opens up an audience further so

more people can buy. • Very specific to whether you like who’s on the front

cover to whether you’d pick this magazine up or not.

AUDIENCE: HOW IT ATTRACTS• Attracts middle/upper class because of linking ads- apple advertising on back

pages. • Ian Curtis on front cover- shows it caters for older audience and younger who

have an interest in older music/ new up and coming bands• NO specific gender. Anyone could pick this magazine up if they liked indie

music. • Built up a name for themselves (NME Magazine)

QUALITY• Quality of paper- low• No gloss, just matte. • Roughly 65 pages- short. But not a lot of advertisement. • Cost: £2.50 – good for the quality of article and paper.

• I personally think this is a very good magazine.

• Lots of content

• Not a lot of adverts

• Flows- linking images and text, all makes sense. All the same content, flows easy- is NOT cut up.

OPINIONS