Homework 1 – Content

NME have a lot of pages that appear on every issue that is released. One of these pages is called ‘Sounding Off’ and is a page where readers write in to talk/rave about/slate artists/bands and each week is a new person replying to all these letters on the page. They also have a letter of the week and if you manage to secure the letter of the week you get £50 worth of ticket vouchers from a website called www.seetickets.com.

Another page that features in every issue is called ‘On Repeat’ and in every issue, they recommend 20 new tracks that you should listen to. This allows the reader to discover new artists and keep up to date with new music that is being released. Similarly, on a page titled ‘Radar’, NME suggest some new artists for you to ‘discover’ that relate to the indie/rock genre so that you are likely to enjoy their music.

The main articles within the magazine are almost always about a new album being released. The main feature about Royal Blood (as seen on the magazine cover) talks about their success and often compares their sale numbers with other successful artists such as Oasis and Arctic Monkeys for a shock factor which makes them seem like an ‘amazing’ band that you will want to listen to. A lot of the articles with bands and artists talk about their background so that readers feel like they really know who the artists they listen to and want to find out more about who they are and their pasts.

On the contents page, NME have conveniently have a band list which informs you of all the bands mentioned in the magazine and what page to find it on. This gives an idea to the reader of what to expect and it allows them to find their favourite artists and go straight to where they are mentioned. On the back page, there is also a list of some of the featured artists in the next issues. This gets readers excited and makes them want to purchase the next magazine to see the artists mentioned.Some of the artists featured in the magazine are: The

Ramones, Kasabian, Foo Fighters, The Who, and The Smashing Pumpkins. All of these are rock bands which is suitable for the magazine because they are a rock/indie magazine. They have included these artists instead of Pop artists because the readers will be interested in their music because they buy the magazine because they prefer indie/rock music.

One of the advertisements in this magazine is promoting O2 Priority. It is promoting their concert tickets that get released 48n hours before the other tickets. This has been used as an advertisement because everyone who is reading a music magazine will want to see their favourite bands at their concert and so they will be drawn to the ad to see if they are able to get tickets to a convert before they sell out straight after general release. The advertisements in the magazine will mainly relate to music as that is what the readers are interested in and so they are more likely to be interested in it.

In every edition of NME, they have a section where they review albums. People respect NME and value their opinion so will want to read what they thought of an album before purchasing it to see if it is worth it or not. People will also want to read the reviews if the album is a new release because there won’t be many other reviews on it and so NME may be the first one they have read which will influence whether they listen to it or not.

There is a full page advertisement on a deal on a subscription to NME magazine. This has been placed here as clearly readers will be interested in saving money while still being able to read the magazine because if they weren’t interested in the magazine then they wouldn’t have spent money on it.