Institutions

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In terms of what media institution I would pick to distribute my media magazine I would narrow it down to two publishers, Bauer or IPC.

I would choose Bauer as one of my options because they are Europe’s largest privately owned publishing group who distribute big music magazine brands such as Q and Kerrang. This way my music magazine would be distributed worldwide in order to get the magazine name well recognised by the majority of magazine readers, helping my magazine name to become a worldwide known brand. Because Bauer is a well-established brand it may increase the chance of my magazine getting well recognised because they distribute other big music brands.

I would choose IPC as one of my options because they produce over 60 iconic media brands, with print alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men. This would be ideal for my music magazine as my intended target audience is women and IPC reach almost two thirds of UK women so my magazine would have a much higher chance of being a successful brand if it is distributed to the majority of UK women. They also have two different divisions of women, mass market women (IPC Connect) and upmarket women (IPC Southbank) so my magazine would fall into either one of these categories making it very specific to what type of women would be buying my magazine.

The advantages of my magazine going with a big company would be that they already have an established, recognisable brand name so my magazine would be more likely to get recognition if it was distributed by brands such as Bauer and IPC. Also, if I wanted my magazine to be widely distributed I would be better to go with a large publisher who has distribution deals with the UK's largest magazine retailer.
The disadvantages of my magazine going with a big company would be that it might affect your "editorial independence" and the company may make you pay as much attention to advertisers as you do to your audience in order to maximise your profits.

The advantages of my magazine going with a small or medium company would be that my magazine brand would have more independence than it would if I went with a big company.
The disadvantages of my magazine going with a small or medium company would be that it wouldn’t have the same established, recognition as it would if I went with a big company. Also, because they aren’t such a big company, the majority of magazines tend to shut down because they cannot keep up with the costs and end up in huge dept.

A magazine brand similar to my own magazine is ‘Vibe’ which is published by a smaller company ‘Vibe Media Group’. This may be a good choice to go with because they publish similar magazines to my own. However, this company was shut down in 2009 because they were in huge dept from not making enough profit so this again would be a disadvantage with going with a smaller, less-established company.