2. Research - Existing Products

Emap originated in 1947 with the merger of four newspapers in Peterborough, Kettering, King's Lynn, Bury St Edmunds and Market Harborough to form East Midlands Allied Press Ltd, based in Peterborough. In 1953, it launched weekly newspaper Angling Times and bought Motor Cycle News in 1956. By 1970, it had 9 magazines and 19 newspapers. Emap was the second largest magazine publisher in UK, holding about 18%. In July 2007, the company was split up and sold. The magazines were sold to Guardian Media Group and private equity firm Apax - which owns Incisive - for £1 billion. The new company was named Incisive-Emap. Its consumer magazines and radio arm, including Kiss and Magic, went to Bauer for £1.14 billion – this made the German magazine publisher the biggest in Britain. Emap's 2007 accounts listed 200 brands: 50 consumer titles; 42 local and 8 national radio stations, and 50 licences for FHM.

The company was founded in Somerset in 1985 by Chris Anderson. In 2006, Future plc was th sixth largest media company in Britain. It publishes more than 150 magazines in areas such as video games, technology, automotive, cycling, films and photography. Future is the official magazine company of all three major games console manufacturers. An early innovation was the inclusion of free software on magazine covers, Future plc were the first company to do this. Anderson sold Future to Pearson PLC for £52.7m in 1994, but bought it back in 1998, with Future chief executive Greg Ingham and Apax Venture Partners, for £142m. In December 1999, Future issued Planet PC, a new PC gaming magazine intended to appeal to male eight-to-twelve-year-olds. In 2001 Anderson left Future. In November 2009, Future reported a fall in profits from £9.5 million to £3.7 million (a loss of 61 percent) in the fiscal year that ended 30 September 2009.

Bauer Media Group is a large German publishing company based in Hamburg, which operates in 15 countries worldwide. Since the company was founded in 1875, it has been privately-owned and under management by the Bauer family. It was formerly called Heinrich Bauer Verlag KG, abbreviated to HBV and usually shortened to H. Bauer.Worldwide circulation of Bauer Media Group's magazine titles amounts to 38 million magazines a week. Bauer Verlagsgruppe has been managed by four generations of the Bauer family. Originally a small printing house, the company has now grown into a worldwide publishing business. The Bauer Publishing Group comprises 282 magazines worldwide in 15 countries, plus TV and radio stations. Bauer started in the UK with the launch of Bella magazine in 1987 and as H Bauer Publishing became Britain's third largest publisher. Bauer further expanded in the UK with the purchase of Emap Consumer Media and Emap Radio in 2008 to become the UK's biggest publishing group.

Harris Publications Inc. is an American consumer-magazine publisher in New York City, New York, that publishes over 75 titles, including Juicy, XXL, King, Dog News, 0-60, Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement, Small Business Opportunities, Men's Workout, Exercise & Health, Celebrity Hairstyles, and many more. One major division, Harris Outdoor Magazines, publishes several titles on hunting, fishing, and firearms. Harris Comics published the former Warren Publishing character Vampirella for nearly two decades.

I think Harris Publications are more likely to publish my music magazine. The other companies, althought beiong substantial and specialising in the music genre aswell as others, don't seem to cover the rap/hip-hop scene even vaguely. XXL is a prolific rap magazine, and is well known not only in the United States, but in the UK also. This would make me assume that my magazine would fit closely to one simlilar to this, and would therefore do well under this publisher.


Contents Page Analysis

This contents page is semantically dark and connotes horror, gore and blood. The colour pallet is red, black and white, which seems to be very popular in contents pages. The large image in the bottom right hand corner draws an audience’s attention as he is using a direct mode of address, and appears to be glaring out at the reader. The main font is consistent, and different text types are used rarely, to separate certain segments from the main stories. The page numbers are in red, which again re-enforces the connotation of blood. The article names are then in black, this separates the articles, and makes it easy for the readers eye to flow around the page and find what they are looking for specifically very quickly. Also, the letter from the editor is sectioned off, and takes up half of the page, which lets us know it is an important element of this particular contents page. Also, the featured articles follow the colour pallet, and are sectioned off in the bottom left hand corner to make them accessible, but stress their lack of importance to the other articles.

In contrast to the first contents page, this one is set out rather differently, although it again follows the typical black, red and white colour pallet. The main article in this magazine takes us a vast majority of the contents page, and clearly states what page to find it. Also, big but slightly less important articles and pasted across the bottom of the page, again making it easy to find separate, important articles. The featured articles aren’t given much room on this contents, but little pictures and bold red underlining is used to enhance their names. Also in this page, the word ‘Contents’ isn’t full shown, and is partly covered by Jay-z’s head, this is a common way of a magazine boasting, as if to say that the readers know what they’re going to find here.

This cover contrasts to the other two, as we find the colour blue, which we didn’t in the others. This one also covers up the whole word contents as a way of bragging. Unlike the others, the main article is given the only picture space on the whole page, and other articles are simply listed with page numbers. This suggests that the main article will be one of the only reasons this magazine appeals to people, as they aren’t using any techniques in order to advertise their smaller, less significant articles. Again, direct mode of address is used, and the picture of Travis Barker is position at eye level, which will automatically catch an audience’s attention.