The document discusses the target audiences and readership demographics of several alternative music magazines: - Kerrang! targets 14-22 year olds but has a wide age range due to its diverse music genres. It has more male than female readers. - Rock Sound focuses only on rock music and has a smaller target audience of 15-24 year olds compared to Kerrang!'s wide audience. - Big Cheese, which stopped publishing in 1996, would have targeted 16-30 year old males more heavily due to the genres covered. - XXL, a rap magazine, has a heavily male readership of 78% that matches the male-dominated rap industry. Its readers have a median age of 27 and income

1. RATE CARDS

2. An alternative music magazine, Kerrang! caters for a wide target audience with the main age bracket being 14-22 year
olds. This wide age bracket can be seen through the diverse range of genres the magazine includes. From Pop Punk all the
way to metal, Kerrang! has attracted a wide range of people, globally, since 1981. The main age bracket also conveys the
teen angst, rebellious persona which is portrayed in the magazine. With an imbalanced gender ratio favouring male
readers, it becomes evident how Kerrang! tries to appeal to these male readers through the colour scheme, images and
typefaces.

3. Kerrang!’s readership conveys that the magazine attracts more males than
females. Therefore it can be suggested that the conventions of the
magazine appeal to males more than females. In particular, the colour
scheme and main image. The colour scheme would appeal more to males
due to the dark, masculine colours. In addition, the main image used is
often a man or an all male band. On the contrary, the imbalance is not too
severe, this connotes that the magazine does appeal to the female readers
too. The magazine appeals to female readers because of the genres it
covers. Alternative music is diverse and therefore appeals to both genders.
Furthermore, in some editions, the main image is a woman. This would
appeal to the female audience who aspire to be like the women who are in
a male dominated genre.
In addition, the rate card also conveys the wide variety of the audience
that the magazine appeals to. This is because of the range of genres that
the magazine includes. As expected, the main target bracket are teenagers
and young adult. This is because the informal language and type of music
appeals to this age group the most. The Artists’ ages also play a big part in
who reads the magazine as stereotypically, older adults wouldn’t read a
magazine with young adults on the cover. They would prefer a magazine
with an older, middle aged adult on the cover.
Interestingly, the ABC1 profile indicates that the upper and middle classes are the biggest groups of Kerrang!’s readership. This shows how the range
of genres appeals to all the social classes. Furthermore this also conveys how adults read the magazine, not just teens. These adults would be in
managerial roles or office jobs. They would then read this magazine to relax after coming home from work. Although the ABC1 classes are the greater
majority, they only make up 51%. This shows how the younger audience, the teenagers make up a large part of Kerrang’s! following too. These
teenagers would be in the lower social classes as they may not be in employment and are still in education.

4. The magazine Rock Sound, also an alternative music magazine, focuses on the rock genre. This magazine doesn’t cover
the subgenres as extensively as Kerrang! and therefore is targeting a smaller amount of people within a certain age
group. This contrasts to Kerrang! which had a main age bracket which the magazine appeals to the most within it’s large
target audience. Rock Sound simply has a small target audience as it’s a niche product.

5. Although Rock Sound didn’t have a rate card in particular, they did have a list of details about their
magazine’s readership and availability. These details give an insight into the audience.
The “core target” is 15-24 year olds. This is similar to the main age bracket of Kerrang!’s target
audience and therefore shows how alternative music magazines target teenagers/young adults
the most. This could be because the music of this genre appeals to them the most and would
therefore want to read more about it. Interestingly, there is no mention of the gender ratio of the
readership. Nevertheless, I think that the magazine would having a ratio which is imbalanced, with
men dominating the readership. This is because the rock genre is male dominated ,with men used
on the Front Covers of magazines and dark colour schemes used. These magazine Front Covers
wouldn’t stereotypically appeal to women and therefore wouldn’t be a large part of the
readership. With that considered, I think that the gender ratio would be 70 (men)- 30(women).
I think that the social classes that the majority of the readership makes up are D and E. This is
because some of the teenagers of the Target Audience wouldn’t be employed and therefore are in
the lowest social classes. The adults of the Target Audience would be in employment however they
would not be in any of the ABC1 classes. This is because these jobs are high managerial roles, office
jobs and skilled manual work. These classes don’t stereotypically read alternative music magazines
and therefore wouldn’t make up part of the readership.
In addition these ABC1 classes may like the interests advertised however these interests mentioned
like fashion and gaming may not be the suitable for the target audience’s ages. An adult women may
share the same interest of fashion with a teenage girl who likes alternative music however the
teenage girl’s ideas about fashion would be suitable to the audience as she understands the current
fashion trends in alternative music and shares the same ideas as the target audience.

6. Big Cheese, first published in 1996, is an alternative music magazine that no longer publishes content. It also does not
have a rate card or any published information on their audience. Therefore I will be using my analysis of the magazine to
create a rate card.

7. Gender ratio
Male
readers
Female
readers
ABC1 Readership
ABC1
C2DE
The target audience of Big Cheese would be 16- 30 year old males. This is because of the
several reasons. Firstly, the magazine was first published in 1996, subscribers of the
magazine from the start would now be adults. In addition, the genres covered the most
tend to appeal to young adults and adults in general. Genres like Punk and Metal were
very popular 30 years ago and therefore those people who liked these genres would
have read this magazine. The fact that there were fewer platforms for viewing the
content, or distribution for that matter, means that fans of alternative music back then
would have bought the magazine. However, I think that the target audience does
include older teenagers because some teenagers do enjoy these heavier, older genres as
well as the other genres covered in the magazine. Hard-core and alternative rock appeal
to teenagers who like alternative music and would therefore read this magazine.
Due to these genres being male dominated and heavy, stereotypically, women wouldn’t
be interested in this magazine as these heavy genres are covered in detail. Therefore, I
think that the gender ratio of the readership would be imbalanced, favouring males
heavily, 85-15. This is because the dark colour schemes and genres appeal to them. In
extension, the main images of male artists and bands allow the reader to aspire to be
like them.
I think that Big Cheese has an imbalanced ratio between the social classes of the
readership. I think that due to the age of the target audience, there are members who
are unemployed or are in the working class. However, there are members of the
audience who are in the higher ABC1 social classes. Due to the age of the teenagers,
some may not be in employment, those who are would be in the working class. The
older members of the target audience would be in the ABC1 Classes as they would be
more likely to have secured a managerial role or office job. These readers who liked
alternative music when growing up would now read the magazine as a way to relax
after returning from work. Due to the age of the magazine and the genres , there
would be a similar amount of readers who are teenagers compared to the number of
readers who are adults. Overall, I think that the alternative music genre appeals more
to teenagers and young adults than adults in general, therefore making the ratio
imbalanced in favour of the lower classes.

8. XXL is an American rap/hip-hop magazine; founded in 1997. This magazine places a large emphasis on the lifestyle
of rap artists and the culture around rap. Unlike expectations, XXL choose to convey the rap genre in an intelligent
light through the colour scheme and house style, as well as the content itself.

9. Unsurprisingly, the gender ratio of the readership is massively one-sided, with men
being 78% of the readers. This is because the rap genre and industry is heavily
dominated by men, with little to no female artists having a major breakthrough. Male
readers would be less interested in the genre and therefore the magazine if it were the
other way round. The reason why the magazine attracts so many male readers is
because of the famous male rap stars like Eminem, Ice Cube and Dr Dre, that the male
readers idolise. In addition, the rap lifestyle and culture sees may women treated as
sexual objects, degrading them. This would explain the low amount of female readers.
However, the magazine portrays the genre in an intelligent light, without
objectification. This would appeal to both genres, hence why there are female readers.
Additionally, the reason why the magazine’s median age is 27 is because of the time of
the genre’s popularity. Although rap may still be popular today, the genre peaked in
popularity during the 90s. Teenagers who grew up reading XXL became loyal readers to
the magazine. These teenagers would now be adults, fitting the average age of 29. In
addition, this would also explain their average income of $56,571. This income would
not be able to be achieved by teenagers, therefore suggesting that the majority of the
audience would be in the AB classes. This contrasts with alternative music magazines
who have a readership in the lower classes. However this is due to the audience’s age.
As teenagers, in education, they would not be able to be in employment to earn a wage
like the one seen in the XXL rate card. The pricing of my magazine would be something
I’d have to consider a lot due to the economic situation of my audience.