TARGET AUDIENCE OF REGIONAL

MAGAZINES

Most regional magazines tend to aim at the middle aged/working class readership. This is because regional magazines tend to include information about the importance of the community and many updates on the region, as this is often attractive to older people.

They tend to base themselves around the idea that the audience would like to read about culture and society in the region. For example, there are normally many articles containing information about: restaurants, getaways, property for sale and many other things that have been reviewed.

Similarly, the trend for common regional magazines tends to be that they focus on beautiful landscapes from the region, perhaps enforcing pride to live in the place you live in, which is more common in the older generations.

This is common for magazines such as Dorset, Essex life, Northern life and Cambridge magazine.

WHAT IS THE CONVENTIONAL TARGET AUDIENCE OF MOST

REGIONAL MAGAZINES?

CONVENTIONAL REGIONAL MAGAZINES

BORING!!!

In my opinion anyway...

For these unique and modern magazines, it’s clear from the style/layout and the content in the articles that it tends to aim at a younger audience. Also, it could be that these magazines focus on aiming at more working class majorities, due to Absolute often being distributed with newspapers. In addition, the fact that both the magazines are free could also appeal to everyone, but specifically the working class.

WHAT IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR ABSOLUTE AND THE SOURCE?

This shows that 60% of the population are working/employed.

As both magazines are younger and more fresh in culture, the content is a little edgier and it contains more “gossip”, musical content and specifically fashion. This aspect allows us to know that the audience being targeted are specifically people who are interested in young and modern culture, mainly being the younger generations.

WHAT IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR ABSOLUTE AND THE SOURCE?

This shows that 41.7% of the population are 20-44 year olds (young people).

As young and “indie” culture is clearly apparent in these magazines, it clearly is linked into the region it is based. As Brighton is well known for being a cultural area, the population of homosexuals reading the magazine will be much higher than other common regional magazines.

WHAT IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR ABSOLUTE AND THE SOURCE?

Section of the article which is dedicated to gay pride.

Similarly, these cultured and modern magazines tend to aim at a certain demographic, with it specifically focusing on arty/indie people. For example, with Brighton University being well known for its art and crafts and producing rife harvests of excellent students consistently, this means that the Source and Absolute can focus on aiming at a younger audience like these students.

WHAT IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR ABSOLUTE AND THE SOURCE?

“Passionate about their lifestyle” here shows that the writers aim their magazine at people who love arts/culture.

These two statistics (top: film, bottom: art) are the rankings of Brighton University, as you can tell they are a popular and successful university in terms of arts, and combining this with the rich culture the city has, it’s clear Absolute and Source thrive here.

I contacted the editor of the Source magazine in order to gain a better understanding of the audience who read the magazine. Unfortunately, I am yet to receive a response from them, this means that I cannot gain a percentage ratio of the demographic of the audience. For example, I can’t obtain the information that tells me what percentage of the readership are above the age of 20 etc.

However, due to the vagueness and the fact the target audience is based off of regional magazine conventions and the social composition of that area, it means that my magazine doesn’t have to be focused around a specific social group (e.g. Cambridge magazine solely aims at adults). This means that I can aim to focus on the majority of the population, and can also implement fresh ideas that might attract both young, old and people who are ethnically different.

FINDING OUT MORE INFORMATI0N ABOUT THE READERSHIP

READERSHIP: 25,000 per month.

COST: Free of charge.

DISTRIBUTION: Throughout Brighton and London in specially selected outlets (Over 1,500) including 5* Hotels, Luxury Apartments, private members clubs, Various hair & Beauty Salons, restaurants and bars, coffee houses and fashion shops.

This information allows us to realise the wide variety of people who read the magazine. As modern and fresh magazines like these two are normally read by working class (normally young) people, the fact that Absolute is distributed in higher class areas like 5* hotels means that it is attractive/focuses on richer people too, not just the working class.

FIGURES? ABSOLUTE BRIGHTON