Bauer Media and Time Inc. would be well-suited to distribute the media product due to their experience targeting a young adult audience and extensive distribution networks. As large publishing companies with magazines similar to the proposed product, they could exploit their experience with the target demographic. Their brand recognition and existing audiences could help increase awareness and sales of the new magazine. Time Inc. in particular may provide more publicity opportunities due to its size and ownership by a major media conglomerate.

1. Evaluation Question
3
What kind of media institution might distribute
your media product and why?

2. Media Production

3. Bauer media are a well known European based publishing company
that manages over 600 magazines, 400 digital products and 50 radio
station. They are famous for publishing magazines such as Q and
Kerrang! Which have a similar target audience age as mine, which is
young adults. This would mean the experience of a similar target
audience age could be exploited through my production. Both my
magazine and Bauer would benefit from this, mine because of the
audience that Bauer already receives and the name they have
established for themselves. Bauer would benefit as in a sense my
magazine is new, and could bring a different type of audience to the
group. Overall their fan base and total audience would increase.
Bauer could also offer the release across their multi-platforms,
bringing the product more into the audiences mind.

4. Time Inc. is a very big American publishing company that I
would also chose to publish my magazine. Time Inc. is owned by
time warner and is merged with Warner communications. It is
an American New York based publishing company and publishes
over 90 magazines, including NME. My magazine and NME
share the same young adults target audience, therefor Time Inc.
would be a good professional choice to choose to publish it.
Due to Times Inc. being a large conglomerate, a lot of publicity
would come with it being published by them. Potential readers
of my magazine might be more likely to buy my magazine due to
the fact that they know Time Inc. is a well-known favoured
name.

5. Lynne Segall
Lynee Segall who is most known for Billboard, has
a huge presence in their market of the industry.
With just over 17,000 copies in circulation, and
over 15 million people viewing their publications
yearly, they have a clear hold on the market. This
is one major reason why I think it would be
beneficial for my magazine to be published by
them. Billboard also currently share the exact
same target audience as my magazine, 16 to 24
year olds. We also share the same magazine style,
as they believe it should be very basic/minimal
and they focus on pop music which is a large
audience, just like hip hop after it’s recent growth.

6. Buzz Media, which is best known for SPIN
magazine decided to stop running their
publications in 2012 and only publishing them
online. My magazine could therefor offer them a
way back into the hard copy market, therefor
acting as a competitor to other magazines which
would then draw more of a target audience to
Buzz Media than the other distributors. Due to
them being online, this limits their audience
which overall influences how large the target
audience is. Finally, SPIN is a very different genre
of music to mine, therefor I could help Buzz
Media expand into a different type of audience,
therefor just growing their readers.

7. Vertical and Horizontal Integration
Vertical and horizontal integration is a key aspect in the success of marketing and
distributing a magazine. ‘Integration’ is the coming together of something to
make it work or benefit the overall success of it. Vertical integration is when a
company owns different companies all selling similar genres, for example music.
Whilst horizontal integration is when a large company (e.g. Time Inc.) owns
different subsidiaries of the same structure such as TV, radio and magazines.
Horizontal integration would be extremely beneficial to my magazine as it can
boost popularity through multiple media streams. Synergy would also be
beneficial when distributing my magazine as other larger conglomerates could
sell my product as well.
Looking at all distributors, it is clear that all would be suitable in distributing my
magazine. However I do believe that Bauer and Times Inc. would be most
suitable. They have experience in selling to my target audiences age, with a lot of
success from both distributors. They also have many other contacts as they
distribute for many large magazines, and other famous media platforms that are
aimed at the same age group allowing my magazine to be effectively marketed
and helping to dramatically boost sales.