What kind of Media Institution might distribute your media

product and why?

A media institution is an organisation which is

responsible for the production, marketing, distribution or regulation of media texts.

The advantages and disadvantages of a big institution and a small institution...

Big Institution

Advantages•They may have experience in publishing a similar magazine.•There experience will enable them to publish your magazine more quickly and efficiently.

Disadvantages•They may already publish a similar magazine therefore might not want to publish it. If they did, there would be competition between the two magazines therefore they would be sharing the success.

Small institution

Advantages•They will have less magazines to publish therefore will be able to concentrate more on the magazine.•They aren’t likely to have a magazine in the same genre therefore there will be no competition, this means they are more likely going to want to publish it.

Disadvantages•They will have less experiencing in publishing magazines.•They will probably be slower at publishing the magazine as they will have less people working for them.

Which major UK publishing company would I like to publish my magazine?

After looking back at my existing product research, in which I researched the publishers of those magazines, I have come to the conclusion that EMAP would be the best company to publish my magazine. Although EMAP do not publish any music magazines now, they did publish MOJO magazine until 2008 before Bauer took over. I found from my research that MOJO magazine has featured several special edition issues over the years such as ‘Punk’ and ‘John Lennon’ therefore they have experience in publishing a special edition magazine which suits the needs of my magazine as it is an 80s special edition issue.

EMAP also published SMASH HITS magazine until 2006 when they decided the magazine was no longer suitable for the modern teenage audience as they could find out information about music over the internet. However they still have experience in publishing a pop music magazine and still publish special edition issues of the magazine. EMAP now publishes business-business magazines such as NURSING TIMES and RETAIL WEEK however they still have the experience in publishing music magazines. This means that the company have no other magazine like mine that they are currently publishing therefore there is room on the market for my ‘POP’ magazine and there would be no competition which means it would be more successful.

Media institutions that I considered...

I considered choosing IPC Media to publish my magazine as they currently publish music magazines. NME is published my IPC Media and is a popular music magazine which shows they have good and successful experience. They don’t currently publish any magazines which are similar to mine therefore there wouldn’t be competition. They also published a music magazine in the 80s called ‘Number One’ which was a teenage pop magazine. However I decided against this media institution as ‘Number One’ pop magazine, which they previously published wasn’t as successful as Smash hits magazine and wasn’t running for that long therefore this suggests they weren’t great at publishing this genre of magazine. Therefore I decided to go with the publishers of Smash hits magazine, EMAP.

I considered choosing Bauer to publish my magazine because they currently publish music magazines including MOJO and Smash hits special editions, after taking over from EMAP. However they already publish a magazine called POP, therefore if I was to choose this company I would have to change the name of my magazine.

How could my magazine, as a product, be extended into other media

areas?Because my magazine ‘POP’ is a special edition issue and wouldn’t bee published on a weekly or monthly basis as of yet it probably wouldn’t be extended into other media areas. However if the magazine were to become a regularly released product it could extend into other media areas. There are already music festivals, or have been, dedicated to 80s music such as ‘80s Rewind’ and ‘Retrofest’ therefore my magazine ‘POP’ could extend into a annual 80s music festival. It could also extend into its own 80s music channel, like Kerrang and Smash hits have done, featuring upbeat 80s music.