NME MUSIC MAGAZINE ANALYSIS

ALIVIA OSBORN

YEAR12

AS MEDIA STUDIES

NME MAGAZINE: CIRCULATION • Circulation: “more than 300k copies are distributes nationally through

stations, universities and retail partners” – 15,830 (ABC jan-jun 2014) (print and digital editions)• Paid circulation: 15,000- 250,000• Underpaid circulation (free version in 2015) 300,000 • Subscription: now free magazine- you just pay for the postage• Charge to cover postage and distribution is from £9.00 • To buy from a shop in 2014: £2.50

PUBLISHER: TIMES INC. UKThe publisher of NME magazine is Times Inc. UK.The publishing director is Jo Smalley and the editor is Mike Williams.(Times Inc. UK has a large portfolio selling 350million copies each year of their magazines.Times Inc. UK was founded in 1963 and the owner of times Inc., UK is the Company Time Warner.

NME’S FIRST PUBLISHINGThe first publishing of NME was in 1952 as “accordion times and musical express” and was bought by the London music promoter Maurice Kinn for £1000,15 minutes before it was due to officially close. Accordion Times and Musical Express was relaunched as NME (new musical express).NME was initially published in a non-glossy tabloid format on standard newsprint! This style has stayed with the magazine and still is the way it is printed.

GENERAL• The audience knows this is a mix of indie and rock due

to front cover & contents page names.

• The writing style is very casual- The pages 58-61 looks at live reviews. It goes through gig song by song and the magazine has all different writers for different gigs .• Pages 56-57 fill the page- The interview and review of

Peace’s gig in Birmingham. The photo was taken from this gig and shows the atmosphere at a Peace gig- this is intended so the audience knows that these bands are supported by the magazine.

FRONT COVERHouse Style:The NME Masthead usually in top left hand corner with date going up the left hand side.The font colouring is usually red, white and black.

The positioning of the central image is preferred in the middle but not always. The way this photo of Ian Curtis has been taken is in quite an artistic manner.

On NME’s front covers there is usually no secondary images.The catchy taglines get the readers interested. There’s a simplicity within this front cover but still makes the magazine look very interesting.

Specific Cover:• Shot type is very odd- the main focus of the central image is

the man (Ian Curtis) but he is very far away. This is very stylised due to the table and everything focusing around Curtis. All the anchoring text is on the table because it links to the central image.

• There are NO secondary images-all cover lines in red do NOT link to the image ( this is a house style of NME)

• The angle of this shot is quite odd. It is taken from one end of a table it looks like you’re looking up at Curtis. Seeing him from this different angle is like the unseen notebooks (what the audience connotes when they see this shot)

• I would say the photo is slightly tweaked because it is very grainy. This could be due to the fact that it’s an old photo that was noisy and scanned into a computer- I personally think it has been made grainy to give it an old look.

• The multi-coloured strip underlining name draws the audience’s attention to who this magazine is specifically about.

Contents Page:THREE COLUMNS SPLITTING INTO:

REGULARSFEATURESBAND LIST

The masthead within magazine title, shows what magazine this is to someone who’s caught a glimpse within magazine

Bandlist:The magazine is categorised into bands in alphabetical- then the page numbers rather than other way around.

The house style of NME’ magazine is typically in this layout for contents page

Colourscheme: This is the house style of NME this Black, white and red.

ADVERTS WITHIN MAGAZINENME’s adverts are either to do with NME events, music or large brands. Inside the front cover is the advertisement for a small band advertising their album Throughout the magazine NME are advertising their own events. One page is full of different bands advertising tour dates. The back page is apple advertising new products. This links to NME because it’s a music magazine.The target audience is people probably with money due to apple advertising- they know it’s a popular magazine too- big money advertising in it.But many people have iPhones due to contracts so maybe this is a magazine that’s aimed at everyone- people with and without money.

RADAR: DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD• COLOUR-SCHEME: Is strict to the colours of black,

white and red (this flows throughout the magazine)

• WRITING STYLE: The writing style is clearly stuck to how the rest of magazine is written. It’s quite chatty yet formal and focusing purely on Indie music; whether it’s a band, festival or the story of a band.

• The image relates to texts due to the fact it’s the band Public Access TV- the article is about them. T ratio of text to image is 50/50;half photo half text.

• This double page spread is very gender neutral. It depends whether you like the band or not whether you would read this article and the rest of the magazine.

HOUSE STYLE/WRITING/INTRODUCTIONS

There is no introduction– it’s very informal scene and sets the house style idea in your head as the reader of the rest of this magazineThe magazine goes straight into a Q&A page.The writing is very chatty and laid backBut this doesn’t mean NME can’t go formal- when introducing a band (like on the Radar page) it becomes formal so audience knows all information.

LAYOUT WITHIN THE PAGES

• Each page varies- the majority of pages have three columns with an average of 3 to 4 images linking to the text within different ways • There is no specific layout kept throughout magazine, shows no house-style

to the layout.

AUDIENCE: I THINK..• age: 14-35- people just getting into music, very into

music and has the money to spend to go to gigs, buy merchandise and albums• no particular ethnicity- depends on the person of who

would buy it • social class: middle/upper class. could be lower but

would say people with money. adverts tell that these are people with money-iphones advertised.• No specific gender. Opens up an audience further so

more people can buy. • Very specific to whether you like who’s on the front

cover to whether you’d pick this magazine up or not.

AUDIENCE: HOW IT ATTRACTSI feel it attracts middle/upper class because of linking ads- apple advertising on back pages. But you could also say this magazine has no particular class that it is aimed at.Ian Curtis on front cover- shows it caters for older audience and younger who have an interest in older music/ new up and coming bandsThere is NO specific gender. Anyone could pick this magazine up if they liked indie music. They Built up a name for themselves (NME Magazine). Everybody knows NME magazine.

QUALITY• Quality of paper- low• No gloss, just matte. • Roughly 65 pages- short. But not a lot of advertisement. • Cost: £2.50 – good for the quality of article and paper.

• I personally think this is a very good magazine.

• Lots of content

• Not a lot of adverts

• Flows- linking images and text, all makes sense. All the same content, flows easy- is NOT cut up.

OPINIONS