analysis of 'TV & SATELLITE' magazine

1. D O C U M E N TA RY A RT I C L E A N A LY S I S .
TV & SATELLITE

2. There is a grid in the magazine article which separates all the different stories to make it clear and easier to
read. The main story has the biggest section in the top left, drawing on the convention of rule of thirds with the
eye of the reader being drawn to the left. This is where I would hope the article about my documentary would
feature on this page as it makes it the man attraction.

3. The image for the main article takes up a third of
the left page so it is large and noticeable. It is a
still directly related to and taken from the
actual documentary. E hope to adapt this by
taking a still from our documentary and
relating it to the the written article.
At the top of the page there is a title for the page
and the convention is that there is a coloured
strip behind the title which carries on over the
double page spread. The use of the soft warm
green color used on this particular example
suggests that this will be a warm documentary
that will make you feel good about life. I feel our
documentary is more hard hitting and reflective
so we would want a more harsh and serious
colour which has more heavy connotations,
possible a blue colour as it is the colour socila
media has adopted (eg facebook and Twitter.)
The use of the bold font catches the eye of the
reader as it is to the point
On the still there is a small tag line
which explains the still as it is out of
context of the documentary so it could
be confusing for a reader.

4. The less prominent articles feature in
a small row at the bottom of the page
going from left to right. The gridding
effect works well as it means less
focus is taken off the main article and
it is easy to read.
The articles in this magazine have a
convention of starting the article with the first
three words in bold rather than the traditional
drop cap. For my magazine I would like to
adopt this for our main article but not for any
side articles.
All the smaller articles contain a
picture that fills half the space in the
grid. I wouldn’t like to have as many
different articles on one page but I
would maybe like one or two related
articles to fill space.

5. The main article is the only one to feature
two pictures. One main one and one within
the actual written article. This could be
seen as adapting and enhancing the
convention of using a interesting quote in
the middle of the article. I like the idea of
using this instead of a quote as I feel it
would be more effective in gaining interest
for the documentary.

6. The use of vibrant colours
on the double page spread
catch the eye of and create
interest for the reader.
However there is one black
and white image used on a
picture related to a
documentary on the
holocaust. This is an
effective technique in
setting the tone for the
documentary, but I feel this
would not work with our
target audience of
teenagers/young adults as
a slightly depressing colour
could put them off with its
connotations.
The magazine also uses the convention of page numbers for the
readers convenience.