Abbie Corbett conducted market research to inform the development of a new music magazine. She created an online survey with 10 questions that was completed by 14 individuals. The survey asked about respondents' demographics, music interests, and magazine reading habits. Most respondents were female, ages 16-18, and listened to pop music. Half read other music magazines occasionally. Based on the results, Abbie Corbett plans to target her magazine towards teenagers and feature multiple music genres to appeal to a wide audience. Pricing the magazine around £1-2 was supported by most respondents.

1. Abbie Corbett
AS MediaStudies:MusicMagazineMarketResearchReport
I have been doing some market research in order to find out what my target audience and style
and context would be if I were to produce a new music magazine. In order for me to produce a
music magazine, I would need to know what type of specific age ranges to aim my magazine at
etc, so I have produced a survey. I made this survey on ‘Survey Monkey’ asking 10 different
questions. Once I had completed this, I then sent it to just over 10 people so that they could
answer my questions, some being general questions and some being specific. For example, the
genres of music people tend to listen to and what sort of magazines people read, if they do read
magazines. I have collected 14 individual responses from different people and I can now analyse
these and begin to collate my results.
Question1-
As I can see from the above results, there are a few different ranges of age groups. There is a
14.29% of people who are between the ages of 13-15, the majority of people at 78.57% being
16 to 18 and a small percentage of 7.14% being 30 and above. This could be because the
majority of people who I sent the survey out to were around my age range of 16. Thus
meaning that the main age range is between 16 to 18 and this gives me an idea of maybe
making the magazine for a target audience around these ages or maybe for it to cover a wide
range of ages from 13 to 30 plus.

2. Abbie Corbett
Question2-
When I asked the question above, I wanted to find out what gender people were as they were
the ones answering my survey and therefore their answers given are important for my
production of a new music magazine. The majority of people that completed my survey were
female at 92.86% and only 7.14% of males. This means that out of 14 people, 13 were female
and only 1 male. This could mean that the rest of the questions I had asked could have been
answered in a certain way due to the fact that there were many more females than males.
This may seem quite stereotypical; however it could be that females may have quite
generally different opinions to those of males. For example, they may be interested in
different types and genres of music.

3. Abbie Corbett
Question3-
As I can see from asking this question in particular, I have been provided with information
that is quite important for me in order to produce a new music magazine that will be
available for people to purchase or maybe receive for free, depending on my thoughts about
the price of the magazine. The reason I asked this question was to simply see how many of
the responders were employed and how many weren’t. It shows above that the majority of
the people who answered my survey were in fact employed; however there are still a lot of
people who aren’t employed. 7 people stated they were employed and they had stated their
employment in the response box, but there are still 6 people who aren’t employed. These
responses can help in order to decide whether or not I will put a price on my magazine, or
give it away for free, as there may be people who can afford a small price for a music
magazine, but there also may be others who cannot or aren’t willing to pay for a music
magazine. Therefore, I have to take this into consideration.

4. Abbie Corbett
Question4-
Obviously before producing my music magazine, I need to have an idea of how many people
actually do buy or read music magazines today. I asked this question and got different
responses. Half of the people I asked responded ‘no’ they don’t read music magazines.
However, the other half said ‘yes’ or ‘sometimes’ This means that there are still around half of
the people I asked who read music magazines, even if it is only occasionally. I wanted to ask
this question so then I would get a clear idea of how many people are still interested in buying
or reading a music magazine. Therefore, for people who do read music magazines, I would be
able to make this magazine as interesting as the usual magazines they buy and as for people
who don’t read music magazines or not as often, I could produce my magazine in such a way
that many more people would be interested in reading.

5. Abbie Corbett
Question5-
After asking whether or not people read music magazines, for those people who didn’t, I
wanted to find out what the reason was as to why they didn’t read music magazines. The reason
for asking this question was to get certain responses that could help me with the production of
my music magazine. For example, if someone said they didn’t read music magazines because
they were too expensive etc then I would maybe think about making my magazine free for the
public. All of the responses I received seem quite negative towards music magazines, as many of
the people said they “don’t like them” or “they don’t seem interesting” or “never really
interested me” as well as someone replying “rather spend my money on something I am
interested in” All of these responses help me in order to gather my ideas about what I can do in
order to make my magazine stand out from the rest and what I could do differently so that
more and more people become interested in music magazines. I want my magazine to make the
above people to become more interested into different music magazines.

6. Abbie Corbett
Question6-
Again, this is another question that I felt was important to ask people so that it could
help me when deciding how much I should price the magazine I make. As well as not
that many people being employed, there are a few people who wouldn’t want to spend a
fortune on a music magazine, as like they said above they would rather spend their
money elsewhere. Only one person said they would be willing to spend over £5.00 on a
music magazine and this person is someone who is already interested in music
magazines and already buys different ones, as it is something they find interesting.
However, 50% of the people who answered said that they would be willing to spend
£1.00-£2.00 which is an affordable price for a music magazine. Three people said they
would want the magazine to be free of charge and another three people said around
£3.00-£4.00. To conclude, there is many more people who are willing to spend around
£1.00 to £2.00 or even free of charge. This tells me that maybe not everyone can afford
to buy a music magazine that is over the amount of £2.00 or they may be able to afford
it, but they may not want to spend anymore money just for a music magazine, like others
would.

7. Abbie Corbett
Question7-
Question 7 was asking what different brands of music magazines people have heard of. I
gave five different options that people were able to select more than one and I also gave an
‘other’ option so that people could write down any other music magazines they had heard
of. Round about 86% of people had heard of both Kerrang and Q and around 71% of people
had heard of both NME and Billboard, with only a smaller amount of 50% had heard of
Vibe. I also got two other responses of people stating what other music magazines they had
heard of which were Rocksound and Mixmag. These particular music magazines have been
heard of each by a least more than one person from the fourteen people who answered my
survey. This means that these music magazines are doing something right, they are getting
out to a wide range of people, even people who don’t read music magazines because they
“don’t interest” them, they have still heard of these different magazines. Therefore, it
would be a good idea for me to see what these magazines have in common and what they
are doing right in order to make my music magazine as well known and interesting.

8. Abbie Corbett
Question8-
I asked the question ‘Would you be willing to buy a magazine app on your smartphone?’ in
order to see what the responses would be. The results actually turned out to be 50% of
people responding ‘no’ and 50% of people responding ‘yes’ which means half of the people
I asked would by a magazine app and half wouldn’t. I thought that maybe this would be an
easier option for most people nowadays to read magazines straight from their smartphone,
instead of having to go to a shop to purchase one. The people who responded no could be
due to the fact that they already go out to buy magazines, or they may just choose not to
buy magazines all together. This is why I asked the question below…

9. Abbie Corbett
Question9-
I wanted to know why people wouldn’t want to buy a magazine app on their phones and I
received the above responses. Again, many people said they don’t interest them or they don’t
seem interesting and some people prefer to have paper copies, rather than reading off their
phones. Therefore, it would be easier to just produce a music magazine for people, rather than
using smartphone apps.

10. Abbie Corbett
Question10-
This is another question that needed to be asked before I produced my music magazine. I
wanted to find out what type of music people listen to and therefore, I could base my
magazine around the most popular genres of music. I would want my music magazine to
appeal to my target audience and I would also want my magazine to appeal to a wide range
of other people. Therefore, I could maybe feature different genres of music and merge
them all together into one magazine. The majority of the people who I asked preferred
listening to Pop music at around 79% but although most people listen to Pop, there are
quite a few people who listen to music genres such as Indie and Alternative. Therefore, I
would want my magazine to be of interest to different people who listen to different types
of music.