Sci-Fi Much?

Magazines and Advertising are being adapted to function well together in the future! This is mainly due to the release of tablet devices, where the two industries can come together to create an extremely interactive and engaging product!

As they do now, Ads and Magazines will go hand in hand in the future. This has a lot to do with media convergence taking place at the moment. In the upcoming years we are going to be seeing the introduction of a lot more tablet device. We already have technology such as the iPAd (which came out recently), and the Norton Ink Adam, but these are just the beginning. For more information on the future of tablet technology, there is an interesting post on TechRadar.

Magazines will be released more and more as content available for tablet devices, which publishers are especially looking forward to, as this has already been tested and proven to be a success with iPhone apps. For publishers, this is extremely efficient, as it means there will be less printing, and they’ll have the potential to make more profit. A package offering a magazine-like experience mixed with the interactivity of being online has a high market value.

This also opens up a new way of advertising in magazines. As of now, the only forms of advertisements featured in magazines are still images printed on paper. However, with tablet devices around it’s easy to advertise using video, as well as images, whilst still making the magazine have a different feel than if it were being viewed online, on a website. A review on tablet technology in regards to the future of magazines explains further here.

Ads will also be made to use message customisation. They will, and are already starting to obtain information about their audience/viewers which can then be used in order to adapt or change the message they are transmitting. One example, according to Doshdosh.com, is that there are already billboards in development which have cameras in them. These cameras forward the images they record to a computer that can 85% of the time accurately identify the gender of the person looking at them. The billboard will then change its content to display something to advertise for that specific audience.

**FUSION MAGAZINE** - Creative Business IDea

Fusion magazine is a 'User Submitted Magazine'.

In a world where the popularity and effectiveness of magazines is governed by the people that read them, it only makes sense to have a magazine which is entirely put together by 'the people'. The way the magazine works is it has a website where a new theme will be announced for every new issue. Upon this announcement, people or companies can start discussions on topics related to the theme. When these topics are posted, the ones that receive the most attention and discussion/comments will be written about in the magazine.

This makes the magazine appeal to almost any audience, as it is focused on the ideas that everyone has thought about and submitted. It is also a good way to make the magazine industry more of an active form of entertainment, instead of it just being about passive reading.

Magazine Sovereignty

Every magazine is undoubtedly produced by a Publisher, just as a film is by a studio. In the UK, there are several publishing conglomerates which own and represent most of the magazines we see around us each and every day!

Here is a list of the main magazine publishing conglomerates in the UK, and the amount of circulation per issue they produced on average in 2009. The information was taken from an article out of the Guardian, and can be found here.

IPC Media

Total average circulation per issue: 7.49m

Bauer Media:

Total average circulation per issue: 4.17m

BBC Worldwide

Total average circulation per issue: 3.8m

The National Magazine Company:

Total average circulation per issue: 3.49m

Future Publishing:

Total average circulation per issue: 1.56m

Condé Nast

Total average circulation per issue: 1.63m

From this information, it can be deduced that the conglomerate which controls more of the industry is the one that circulates the most per issue. But, that also depends on how many magazines each conglomerate owns. In an Industry such as the magazine industry, where a lot of the success of the media produced is based upon an audience's reaction to it, the popularity of each magazine can also influence the amount of control a publishing conglomerate has in the industry.

Geoff Barton

Geoff Bartone was the creator and editor for twenty years of rock/metal magazine: Kerrang! Today, Kerrang! is the most circulated weekly rock magazine in the world.

All quotes by Geoff Barton are from an interview with him.

Geoff Barton’s success in the Magazine Industry started in the late 1970s and early 1980s. After completing a Journalism course at the London College of Printing, at the age of nineteen, he miraculously landed a writing position at then well-known and reputable music magazine, ‘Sounds’, despite never having been published. Barton states that he was “in the right place, at the right time”, as he contacted then editor of sounds, Billy Walker. Walker informed him that he had two vacancies, and had already hired one reputable writer. He therefore decided to give Barton, a complete unknown, a chance. It was also helpful that Barton wanted to concentrate on rock/metal writing, as this was a direction Sounds wanted to go into.

Whilst working for Sounds, Barton’s name became synonymous with the ‘New Wave of British Heavy Metal’ (NWOBHM) movement, as he termed it. Barton was one of the first rock journalists to write about Heavy Metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Angel, Witch, Saxon, Diamond Head, and dozens of others. He was one of the main journalists in the UK responsible for informing the mass audience about this type of music, and these types of bands. It was then in 1975 that the Sounds editor, Alan Lewis, helped Barton to create/launch his own magazine – ‘Kerrang!’ However, by 1979, the management of Sounds decided to pull back the release of Kerrang! due to doubts of its success. Barton nonetheless launched the magazine as a standalone one-shot magazine in 1981 – featuring AC/DC on the front. Luckily for Barton, it was an instant success, and began to be released monthly. Later, Kerrang! turned into a fortnightly publication, and by 1987, weekly.

Barton spoke about how one of his main influences for writing was Stan Lee – a writer for Marvel comics. He said he wanted to write how Stan Lee would write if he was a rock journalist, and Kerrang! had this sort of feel to it. It was very flashy, glossy, and comic – it was very appealing to youth culture, and especially to the rock/metal scene.

Barton was the Editor of Kerrang! for the next twenty years, until 1995. His title was ‘Managing Editor and Marketing and Circulation Manager’, and at the time, sales were unfortunately down impeccably, and for this reason, the French and German publications of Kerrang! even had to be shut down. Barton stated that: “all I ever wanted to do was write about my chosen field of music, rock/metal, and edit Kerrang!. However, the magazine obviously had to be transformed, which Barton would have to be responsible for. The first Kerrang! released with the ‘new look’ featured the band ‘Reef’ on the front. This was perceived as too much of a negative contrast with the earlier Kerrang! editions, featuring bands such as Vain, Death Angel, or Celtic Frost. Therefore, Barton was asked to leave Kerrang!.

Now, Barton is the News Editor in the London Bureau of ‘Automotive News Europe’ Magazine. Barton’s story relays the fact that a lot of happenings in the Magazine Industry are spontaneous and you can never know what to expect. Any opportunity may be available, and every opportunity can just as equally be taken away.

Regulation Sucks!

Most industries have their regulatory bodies - external and internal. They aren't the most liked sectors of an industry, but are important, as they put restrictions in place. With the Magazine Industry, these restrictions are mostly placed on writing styles and content.

One of the main forms of internal regulation in the Magazine Industry is a Style Guide, which is implemented in almost every magazine and is given to every journalist working for that magazine. The Style Guide is essentially an outline of how a writer is supposed to write for that magazine. Some guides may simply give basic instructions as to what type of word processors, fonts, colours, etc, are allowed to be used. Others, such as the Style Guide for The Times Magazine, list words and grammatical concepts alphabetically, almost like a dictionary, describing how these elements may or may not be used. A consequence of this kind of regulation is that it limits the writer/journalist's freedom of style, and instead of having a magazine which appears to be written by several people (as is the truth), you end up with the impression that only one person has written every article, whereupon the question, "what is the difference between a magazine and a book?" should be asked. This may however, be a benefit for more formal and informative magazines, because the writer's style doesn't matter as much, as they are simply transmitting information, not providing entertainment.

AIPCE (Alliance of Independent Press Councils of Europe) is an external regulator of the Magazine Industry. As well as the UK, AIPCE works with content regulation in press and broadcasting throughout all of Europe. These are some of the rules and beliefs they attempt to enforce:

• that the regulation of editorial content in the media should be independent of government;
• that media content regulation, whether national or regional in its coverage, should be based on nations’ differing cultures;
• that the writing of Codes of journalistic ethics and their administration is the business of journalists and publishers, who take into account public feelings, and not the business of governments;
• that it is not possible to operate a universal Code of ethics, and that the imposition of supra national Codes and regulatory organisations, either at the European or global level, should be opposed.

In my opinion, instead of hindering the Magazine Industry, this regulator is working to help it. It's like a union for the Magazine Industry, making sure it isn't compromised in some way. AIPCE especially seems to highlight the detachment of governmental influence and interference from any form of press or broadcasting - which in a democratic society, is a key and just notion.

Map of Magazine Industry Ownership

After doing some research, using primarily the links provided in previous posts, this is the way I have mapped out the ownership and structure of the Magazine Industry. The list at the bottom refers to major players in the industry, in this case, Publishing Companies. Here are links to their websites:

Reader's Digest Association Ltd.

Reed Business Publishing

Remnant Media Ltd.

Trojan Publishing

Show Media

Time Out Group

IPC Media

Imagine Publishing

Hello! Publishing Ltd.

Segregation = Result of Ignorance!

Will convergence make the Creative and Cultural Industries more diverse or will it encourage segregation?

Media convergence will in no doubt make Creative and Cultural industries more diverse, as when people become more aware of other cultures and people, they may also become more accepting.

The more you know about something, the more chance there is of you being accepting of it. Segregation results mainly from ignorance, and not wanting to learn and embrace something different. But, the more someone is exposed to it, and the more people know about something, the more accepting they will be, and the less segregation there will be. This is what media convergence can help with, because it makes everything so accessible, and easier to learn and know about.

For example, lately in the news there was a story about this anti-homophobic bullying group, called Stonewall. They released a video to be shown in high schools to discourage this type of behaviour, and it was reported that 80% of the students who said they were homophobic prior to watching video had changed their minds by the end. This shows how the minds of people can be altered by media, simply because it teaches something new to them.