I have chosen to do my case study on a music magazine called RWD aimed at young people that are interested in grime and urban music. RWD magazine is a young people’s magazine aimed at people who are interested in UK talented and usually unsigned artists and other genres of music such as, hip-hop, drum and bass, house, UK garage and grime. The magazine does not only interest people with music interests but it also has the latest fashion and games, films and gadgets and competitions. It is distributed via JD stores nationwide, universities/ colleges and select fashion boutiques and retail outlets. RWD magazine distribute 1000 copies a month delivered to fashion brands, record labels, marketing companies. At the moment it has the No. 1 contemporary youth title in the UK (based on ABC figures) and Partnerships with MTV Base and MySpace.com/thehookup.
The magazine was started in late 2003 and considers itself ‘the largest magazine in urban music at the moment’. It is released monthly and distributes 36,040 copies each time, it is hugely successful and even though the artists have to pay to be featured in the magazine its healthy distribution and circulation will get the artists more recgonised and advertised. The aims of the magazine are to help aspiring and usually unsigned new artists to get out there so to speak. Its core audience is aged between 15-24 with a faithful fan-base in the 25-35 bracket, many of whom hold key positions in the music and fashion industries.
The website looks very busy and lively with looks of colour and bulletins, blogs, headlines, videos and pictures which attract the targeted audience because if the website was boring then no one would be interested. RWD has a very accessible website which makes it easy for the audience to get to and use when and wherever they want. The magazine compared to the online site is limited because obviously online you can access more things such as; videos, stories of your choice, latest music as the website gets updated regularly, this means that it has more reliable information than the magazine. Also with the website it is free whereas a magazine is inconvenient as you have to go to the shop and get it.
The website has many features such as; blogs, competitions, music, videos, visual adverts and pictures. The website is useful as obviously you cannot have visual adverts, videos and music in the magazine; this makes the website really interesting for the reader. You can also download things such as; mixtapes and songs, this is an attractive feature to the reader and it also encourages the reader to listen to different types of music. The adverts are different from the magazine as some of them are visual which is obviously more eye catching. It also has links to other pages such as fashion pages and to “DJ Mighty’s” blog where you can access free mixtape downloads and different music videos.The magazine website is very cutting edge and modern looking; it reaches this look by using lots of bright colours and attention grabbing abstract pictures such as the fashion pictures and videos. It is up to date with “graffiti type” designs which attracts young people as it is seen as rebellious and cool; this attracts its target audience of young grime and hip-hop fans.
The website also incorporates news, interviews, features and a “most popular” page which shows what the audience have been looking at most, some people may think that this is the most interesting therefore they will go to this page first. There is also a competition page which may attract more readers as everyone likes to win prizes and get free goodies, there are also incentives to make the audience want to fill in surveys/questionnaires as shown in the image below:
I think it is crucial for magazines to consider online and alternative publishing because it gives people a different method for reading the magazine. This will attract different types of readers, they are also targeting younger audiences as younger and more modern people are more likely to use the internet everyday, as the magazine is aimed at quite modern people this is good as they will be likely to make great use of this method for reading RWD magazine. The image shown below is a print screen shot of where the website lets the audience read the magazine and subscribe online and there is also other websites that readers can connect with the magazine, for example, twitter, facebook, youtube, ect. this shows that the readers of the magazine will be in touch with the world and modern because they would use the internet regularly. They aren’t narrowing accessibility by adding an option to read it online because the magazine is still available in shops and gigs and wherever it is distributed therefore they are widening the accessibilty. The magazine doesn’t cost anything therefore it is well worth the read. I would make some slight improvements to the magazine if I were the publisher, as I am not a fan of reading I would make the magazine more visual and less text, this will attract people who aren’t big readers too. There are further ways of publishing the magazine I can think of, for example it can be advertised on television or on urban radio stations which will encourage people to go to shops and gigs to pick it up therefore shops and gigs will get more clients. There is also a top 20 single list on the website which makes it clear that it is music magazine and this will appeal to modern audiences as they will be interested in the latest and most popular music.
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