Proposal

I will be basing my magazine on the indie genre; the indie genre has been around for a very long time and came about in the 1980's in America and England, it's known as individual music and recorded on independent music labels. Indie bands are known for their independence with their music, lyrics, clothing and organization, that contrasts mainstream bands. 


Mainstream radio stations like Radio One and Galaxy FM don't often play indie bands like The Drums, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeZbbx5SPTs, and The Nationals, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgRsYkKb1eI; they stick to set play lists as the indie genre is too specific to certain people. However NME, the leading indie magazine, as well as Indie magazine and Q magazine have a radio stations, websites, a magazine and a TV channel; making them some of the most popular companies to broadcast indie music in the UK. 


NME is run by IPC Media (Time inc) who sell around 350million copies of magazines a year, they also publish many other magazines including Look magazine, Marie Claire, Uncut Music Magazine and many more. NME is their main music magazine and most popular one, the only magazine they produce related to music in Uncut, however this is based more around movies than music. 
Indie magazine is run by Koala Bears Studios who also run a record label for independent music artists.
Q is run by Bauer Media Group, based in Germany who operate in 15 countries worldwide; Kerrang is also run by the same company showing how both magazines are aimed at the same genre of rock, however Q can have a more varying audience. Q magazine began in 1986 and has done so well that the magazine even has it's own awards ceremony called the Q Awards.


Weekly features such as 'News', 'New Music' and 'Reviews' are fixed features included every week for NME, Indie and Q magazine, as well as the main stories that vary each week too. 


At the moment NME costs £2.30 and is published every wednesday, usually the magazine has around 70 pages. Q magazine is £3.50 an issue and is published once a month. Indie magazine is published four times a year and costs £6.80 an issue. 


NME and Indie are aimed at people, varying in age but usually quite young, who like music and bands that aren't featured in day to day radio / television; this audience is similar to the bands including their fashion sense and that sense of independence. Q has a more varying audience, it can appeal to a lot of people as the bands featured aren't all independent, it features rock bands to as well as mainstream, Coldplay are an example of this. 

These are three examples of each magazine, each one appeals to a different type of indie audience; EG the Pete Doherty cover is appealing to people who are interested in the Libertines as well as his life story and how he's coping. Indie magazine features someone who is purely a model, this may appeal to more of a female audience as its focusing more on fashion as well as music. 

The Last magazine features Coldplay who are a mainstream band that appeal to a very wide ranging audience, their attitudes are more indie than anything else as their type of music is catchy and famous but nothing that sounds so unique. 

NME has a readership of around 369,000 a week; 69% of these are males while only 31% is females; NME, standing for New Musical Express, also has a circulation of about 40, 948. The name is expressing the point the genre, New Musical Express is an obvious name.
Q magazine has a readership of well over 700, 000 people monthly and is renowned for it's good quality of printing. 
Indie magazine is quite small therefore I couldn't find the readership anywhere. The title of the magazine is to support the meaning on indie, independent and the music they support.


Q magazine was originally called "Que' until the company decided to change it in fear that it would be mistaken for a snooker magazine, it's not clear what the magazine title stands for but now has a big fan base. 

Having chosen your genre of music magainze, how does it represent anyone accosciated with the genre?

Since I have chosen to base my music magazine on NME, this includes the bands that go with it; a lot of bands are put into genres straight away when they become famous, this corners them into only being played with certain people, at certain places and on certain radio station. Indie music isn't usually played on big radio station like Radio One unless it's with the DJ's that are late in the night.
Bands such as The Drums, One door Cinema Club, Local Natives etc are examples of this, they're often featured in NME but because of this are not played in local radio stations because such a small minority of people would like to hear them comapred to the nation who are more into mainstream music.
When your classed as "indie" you can be thought of in different ways, to indie kids your thought of as the best thing since sliced bread, but to people who shop in Topshop and H&M, your thought of as pretensious and "wannabe"; therefore trying to be pushed into this label can be risque as you do reduce your potental audience.
The Drums became famous when the song "I wanna go surfing" was released in 2010, NME got hold of the band and because of this, they were immedietly classed as "indie"; they didn't go against this though and fitted to that stereotype with the clothes they wore and their attitude.
Being pushed into the indie stereotype isn't such a bad thing though, the indie audience is very large and NME has a very big audience with their radio station and magazine; and indie following can be just as big as the mainstream.
To be class as indie a lot of people see you as stuck up and withdrawn but this can be the case with a lot of bands these days, the clothes they were, what they say, the hairstyles, friends, events etc are a big part of being in the NME magazine; although its not like a fashion music, it all counts.