The document outlines a proposal for a new youth sports magazine called The Sports Life (TSL) commissioned by The Northern Echo newspaper. TSL will target male teenagers aged 15-23 and include relatable content on sports and fitness. It will be financed through advertising sales and cost £1.99 per issue. The proposal includes plans for personnel, equipment, printing costs, estimated income from ads and sales, and shows the magazine will turn a profit while adhering to industry standards.

1. THE
SPORTS
LIFEYouth Sports and Fitness
Magazine – Kurt Hammond

2. The Brief
“You have been commissioned by the
Northern Echo to produce a new
magazine or newspaper product.
Your product could be in any style
or genre but it must be self
financed through sales or
advertising. You must also produce
your magazine for a specified
audience segment within the 16 to
25 age group.”

3. The Client
• The Northern Echo provided
the brief for the product
• Constraints in-place by The
Northern Echo
• Consideration to content,
audience and costs to
produce (TNE are owned by
Newsquest)

4. The Initial
Product Idea
• Genre – Youth Sports
• Fills a gap in the market.
• Generally positive, active aesthetic to
accommodate the primary TA
• Relatable content, similar aged models
and suitable language

5. The Audiences
• The Primary Audience are
male teenagers, specifically
aged 15->23.
• In the socioeconomic range
C/D, lots of free-time for
sports and an active
lifestyle and to keep a
passion in the area.
• Look to improve
themselves and their
performances.

6. The Audiences
(cont.)
• In order to appeal to the primary audience as
much as possible, the content should be:
• Relatable – models, language etc.
• Visually appealing – colours, layout (columns,
text:image ratio) etc.
• Clear genre – youth sports

7. The Audiences
(cont.)
• The Secondary Audience of TSL will include
readers of The Northern Echo, 30+, more
formal.
• Also, parents of the primary audience, want to
take interest in their children’s passions.
• The Effects the Audience will have on the
content (language, style, aesthetics etc.)

8. Commercial Viability
• As The Northern Echo does not have the
available funds to produce a product that
won’t bring in a profit, my product should look
to cover the costs of personnel, equipment
and distribution with advertising and sales.
• Using around 33% of the magazine for
advertising and selling the magazine at £1.99
the total income will exceed the expenditure,
as outlined here in the following slides.

9. Personnel Expenditure
Hours
Journalists, 11
Graphic
Designer, 8
Layout Artist, 8
Models, 8
Lighting
Assistant, 4
Subeditors, 6
Photographers, 6
Researchers, 7
Post Production
Work, 7

10. Personnel Expenditure (cont.)
Personnel Cost (£ per hour) Amount of Hours
Required
Total
Cost
Freelance Journalists 40 11 440
Lighting/wardrobe/make up 30 4 120
Photographers 100 6 600
Post production photographic
40 7 280
work
Layout artists 30 8 240
Graphic designer 60 8 480
Sub editors 50 6 300
Models 100 8 800
Totals N/A 58 3260

11. Equipment Hire Expenditure
Half Days
Studio Space
Rental, 3
Lighting
Equipment, 3
Camera, 4

12. Equipment Hire Expenditure
(cont.)
Equipment Cost (£ per hour) Amount of
Hours Required
Total Cost
(£)
Studio Space 100 12 1200
Lighting Equipment 90 12 1080
Stills Camera 40 16 640
Totals N/A 40 2920

13. Printing/Distribution Details + Expenditure
PRINTING
Using ‘QuoteMePrint’
(http://www.quotemeprint.com/magazines/online_quote)
Printing costs £1670 (highlighted
left)
Quantity: 6,000 copies
Quality: 130gsm
DISTRIBUTION
TSL will be distributed throughout
the northeast, a similar range to that
of The Northern Echo.

14. Income
• Around 1/3 of the product will
include advertising. Advertising Rate
card (right) shows the income for
each of the different types of
advertisements.
• 1x Back Cover
• 1x Inside Front
• 1x Double Page
• 1x Full Page
• 1x Half Page
• Total Income = £3075
The Sports Life – Advertising
Card
The Crack – Advertising Card NARC – Advertising Card

15. Income (cont.)
• Sales: around 6000 copies will be sold at £1.99, comes at just
under £12,000.
• 6000 copies seems a reasonable number, when you look at
similar products in the area such as Narc (6,000 copies), which
is a similar niche product sold in the North East area.

16. Profit/Loss Totals
• Including Personnel, Equipment, Printing and
Distribution the estimated total expenditure is
£7,850
• Both advertising and sales income brings in an
estimated total income of £15,075
• Overall, this works out as a profit of £7,225
per issue, which meets the criteria of the
brief, which required the product to produce a
profit.

17. IPSO Constraints
• IPSO (Independent Press Standards
Organisation) was set up in September 2014,
replacing the Press Complaints Commission
• IPSO is an independent regulator of the
Editor’s Code of Practice, upholding
professional standards of journalism and
supporting members of the public with
complaints of the code being breached.

18. IPSO Constraints (cont.)
• TNE adheres to the Editors’ Code of Practice.
As they provided the brief for TSL, the product
must also adhere to this code.
• The main constraints/issues TSL must be
aware of within the Editors’ Code are:

19. Editors’ Code of Practice – Code 1)
Accuracy
• Throughout all of the content
within TSL, any
information/stats/pictures used
should not be incorrect,
misleading or confuse opinion
with fact.
• Research made in order to
produce an article must be
checked for accuracy, looking into
sources and references.

20. Editors’ Code of Practice – Code 3)
Privacy
• Peoples privacy and private property must be
respected at all times. This is especially
important to us as we will be taking
photographs to accompany articles, so care
must be taken not to intrude on private
property or acquire permission beforehand if
the issue is unavoidable

21. Editors’ Code of Practice – Code 6)
Children
• Being a magazine specifically aimed at
teenagers, we cannot intrude on people’s
education in order to acquire content, both
written (interviews) and photographic (to
accompany articles). Also, permission should
be acquired from parents if someone in
education is to be approached for an
interview/photograph.

22. The Product + Content
• Genre Research – Looked into FourFourTwo
and Empire, appeal to young adults
• Looked into front covers and double page
spreads, look into genre conventions and how
they appeal to the audience.

23. Product – Genre Research (Front
Covers)
• FourFourTwo definitely has the more
striking front cover, with its more
varied colour palette and professional
footballers as models, but Empire
looks a lot more ‘premium’ with its
metallic font and use of serif fonts.
• My product should look aesthetically
similar to FourFourTwo, however we
simply cant get professional athletes
to model for us, so a model similar
age to the primary target audience
should suit.

24. Product – Genre Research (Double
Page Spreads)
• Both FourFourTwo and Empire have similar layouts in their DPS’, with
one main image and many smaller ones accompanying the text. I would
like to take a similar approach but have colour play a bigger part and
the images to not be as regimented as in Empire, but breaking up the
text so that the reader doesn’t get put off from reading a large block of
text. I think the text:image ratio works quite well and a similar one used
in my product should suit the target audience we are aimed at.

25. Flat Plan Front Cover
The main idea for the magazine
is to quickly present itself as a
sports magazine aimed at a
teenage audience.
Model – Teenager, Male –
Represents Target Audience
Model Pose – Actively playing
sport
Takes a similar approach to
professional products –
FourFourTwo, Match etc.
Colour Scheme – Bright, Active,
connote sports

26. Flat Plan Contents Page
• Continued style of front cover,
consistent throughout the
whole product.
• Prompted to find the product
on social medias (Twitter,
Facebook) – Target Audience
• Pictures are ‘randomly’
spaced, not regimented,
interesting to look at.

27. Flat Plan + Mock Up Article
For the first article I flat planned two
separate layouts in order to determine
which worked better, the first (left) used a
lot more images than text and broke up
the text with breakout boxes, quote
inserts and images. Overall worked better
than the second idea (below).
The second flat plan, aimed to be
split directly 50/50 in terms of
text:image ratio and more defined
borders splitting images and text but
came out looking bland and
uninteresting with large blocks of text
taking up the majority of the page

28. Further Articles
• Taking ideas on from the previous flat plans,
the rest of the articles will look to break up text
with images, quotes and breakout boxes.
• Be bright, active and interesting to look at, so
less regimented.
• Takes on a similar layout to that of
FourFourTwo, which has one main image and
further smaller images.

29. Conclusion
• Overall, the brief given to us has been met
successfully. TSL turns over a profit (self-financed),
targets its audience with a USP
(self-improvement sports magazine aimed at
teenagers) and takes on a similar aesthetic to
that of other professional products.