- Bauer Media is a large, worldwide publishing company founded in 1875 that publishes 282 magazines across 15 countries. They own several popular magazines and were the largest publisher in the UK after acquiring Emap in 2008. - IPC Media was formed in 1963 when three leading UK magazine publishers merged. They publish 76 magazines total, including music magazines NME and Uncut. They have had several parent company acquisitions over the years. - Future Publishing publishes over 150 magazines focused on topics like video games, films, and photography. They publish 11 music magazines between the UK and Australia, including Classic Rock and Total Guitar.

1. Investigating Magazine
Institutions.
By Meg Allard

2. Bauer Media.
The Bauer Media company was founded in 1875, they are privately
owned by the Bauer family and have been going for four generations.
Originally they were a small printing house, they launched their first
magazine in the UK in 1987 called Bella, due to this they then became
the third largest publishers. Over the years they have developed and
are now a world-wide company. They publish 282 magazines
throughout 15 countries.
In 2008 they purchased Emap Consumer Media and Emap Radio to
become the biggest publishers in the UK.
They produce many big name magazines, such as; Closer, Empire,
FHM, Grazia, Heat, Q and Kerrang.
Out of their 282 magazines only 3 of which are music magazines;
Kerrang, Q and MOJO. Although they only publish two, these are both
very big and successful magazines which shows that they are the best
in the business.

3. IPC MEDIA.
The International Publishing Corporation was formed in 1963 after the UK’s
three leading magazine published came together to make it do so. IPC
Magazines was created five years later in 1968.
Over the years IPC has had many take overs; its most recent parent company
take-over was Time Inc. Cooperation. The take-over acquired involving all
companies without any significant change in management.
In 1965 IPC set up a management development department to ensure that
all their different convergences weren't in competition with each other these
are; IPC Newspaper, IPC Magazines, IPC Trade and Technical, IPC Books, IPC
Printing and IPC New Products.
They publish 76 magazines in total and they have many big name ones, such
as; Now, Nuts, Soap Life, NME and Woman’s Weekly.
Out of the 76 magazines only two of which are music magazines; NME and
Uncut.
NME is a very big successful magazine which reflects really well on the
company.

4. Future Publishing.
Future Publishing was founded in 1985 in Somerton, Somerset. They are a magazine and internet
publishing company that operate in the UK, the US and Australia. In 2006 they were the sixth largest in the
UK. They publish over 150 magazines in all different categories; video games, film, photography and more.
They are the official magazine company of all three major game console manufactures; Xbox 360: The
Official Magazine, PlayStation: The Official Magazine and Nintendo: The Official Magazine.
The founder of Future Publishing, Chris Anderson, sold the company in 1994 for £52.4 million, he then
brought it back in 1998 for £142.
In 2009 Future’s profits started to fall rapidly and they were left with a loss of 61%.
They publish many big name magazines; Xbox 360: The Official, Windows magazine and Classic Rock.
They publish 11 music magazines, ten in the UK and one in Australia.
UK- Australia-
• Classic Rock Guitarist.
• Classic Rock Presents AOR
• Classic Rock Presents Prog
• Computer Music
• Future Music
• Guitar Techniques
• Guitarists
• Metal Hammer
• Rhythm
• Total Guitar

5. Development Hell.
Development Hell Limited is an independent media company that is based in
Islington, London. They publish Mixmag which is the markets leading
international dance music magazine.
Mixmag has an iPad app, a TV channel and Mixmag events, all of these
things are great for sales, for example, nowadays things are a lot more
technical and advanced and most people do things via computer, phone or
iPad so to move the magazine market to this it would increase their sales by
quite a large margin.
Mixmag has been owned by three different company's, they were originally
owned by DMC Publishing, however in the mid 1990’s EMAP Ltd bought the
magazine, then later on in 2005 Development Hell purchased it and still do to
this day.
Development Hell does not have a lot of information about the company on
the internet, this could be because they have been set up purely for Mixmag;
this may make the company not look as big or as successful as other
company's such as Bauer because they have a nice website with lots of
information.

6. BBC Magazines.
BBC Magazines are the UK’s fourth largest consumer magazine
publisher. They sell over 82 million magazines every year which
shows how successful they are.
They are now part of a new venture called Immediate Media
publishing house, this enables them to publish better quality
and quantity of magazines.
BBC Magazines are such a big, well known company that one
in four adults read a BBC title every month. BBC try to engage
with the readers and give them what they want, they do this by
trying to convey the readers passion and write about what they
want to read.
They publish 25 big name magazines such as; Top Gear, Top of
the Pops, Girl Talk and Bob the Builder.
They publish two music magazines, Top of the Pops and Radio
Times.

7. Why would an institutions want to
publish more than one music
magazine?
An institution would want to produce more than one music magazine
for a number of reasons, the main reason that they would want to do
so is because they would have a larger range of customers, this would
then lead to more profits and more recollection. For example Bauer
music publish three of the biggest music magazines, MOJO, Q and
Kerrang, these are very popular magazines with a large fan base.
Kerrang is rock magazine, MOJO has a range of genre’s from pop, to
rock to reggae and Q magazine focuses on pop and rock, by having
these three magazines covering almost every genre they will then draw
in a lot more buyers than if they only published one. Development Hell
Ltd are an example of an institution that only publish one music
magazine, ‘Mixmag’. ‘Mixmag’ is a dance magazine, although it is
popular its sales are not as high as all three of Bauer's. By only having
the one magazine this affects the success of the company and how well
known they are.

8. What are the advantages for a
company of offering their audience
cross-media links?
The advantages for a company to offer cross-media links to their audience is that they are
guaranteed to get a larger audience which would then result in more sales and more in-come. For
example, when a new film comes out they will advertise it through many different media links.
Some of these are; audio, moving image, non-interactive and more.
Another way in which it will be brought to peoples attention is to advertise it non-interactively,
this would be on a billboard or in a magazine, these really stand out as they usually have a really
effective image of the product. Having said that these adverts are non-interactive, they are
increasingly providing additional links to other media platforms such as Facebook and twitter.
This is just one of the cross-media links used to advertise almost everything in our day and age.
Another cross-media link to advertise it would be to have it advertised at the side of websites, this
means it will be brought to the attention of the target audience.

9. Why is the studying of institutions
useful?
I believe that by studying institutions it is useful
because it helps me to understand what goes into
them and how they have been developed and evolved
over the years. I have also learnt what an institution
actually is, what they do and how they do it. This helps
me in my work because rather than just looking at the
design of a magazine I will look closer at some of the
smaller details that do not always stand out, also it
will help me in developing my own music magazine
because I have been inspired by some of the
publishers and what they do so therefore I may decide
to base my magazine and ideas around them.

10. What do you understand by the term
‘cross-media platforms’?
I understand cross-media platforms to be where the audience can read the
magazine or see it in a different way and format. For example the sun have
their newspaper that has been around for years, however now everything is
advancing they have decided to step up and advance with it too and they now
have the sun website where people can read the latest news that would be in
the newspapers on the internet for free without having to go out and get it.
Development Hell Ltd is an example of a magazine publishing company that
do this, they have their magazine ‘Mixmag’ as an iPad app and a TV channel,
by having it as an iPad app it means that people can stream it too their
phones, this is much easier and more simple than buying the magazine and
that is why people do it, this will benefit them because they will get a lot more
interest as they will like how this institution is keeping up with technology.
Bauer also do this because they offer a Kerrang TV channel, this means that
people who buy Kerrang’s magazines and like the music that they feature in it,
can then listen to the style of music on the television.