The document discusses four magazine publishing companies in the UK - Bauer, IPC Media, Emap, and Future PLC. It provides details on when each company was established, who owns them, examples of the types of magazines they publish, and whether their magazines are mainstream or niche. The concluding paragraphs discuss how Blumler and Katz's uses and gratifications theory suggests that media users actively choose media sources that fulfill their needs, such as diversion, personal relationships, personal identity, and surveillance. Billboard magazine is used as an example of how it can fulfill these four needs.

1. Magazine Institutions and the Uses and Gratifications
Theory

2.  Established: 1875
 Who are they: The Bauer Publishing Group has
grown from a small publishing house into a worldwide
publishing and media company. They own 282
magazines worldwide in 15 countries, as well as TV and
radio stations. They started in the UK with the launch of
Bella magazine in 1987, and grew to become the UK's
biggest publishing group in 2008. The group bought
Australia's largest magazine publisher, ACP
Magazines from private equity paymasters CVC in
2012, increasing the company’s value to more than €2
billion.
 Types of magazines: Closer, Empire, FHM, Q
 Mainstream or niche: Mainstream

3.  Established: 1958
 Who are they: IPC Media is a subsidiary of Time
Inc., and it is a consumer magazine and digital
publisher in the United Kingdom; selling over 350
million copies each year. In 1958 Cecil Harmsworth
King, chairman of a newspaper group which included
the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror, together with
provincial chain West of England Newspapers, made an
offer for Amalgamated Press. The offer was
accepted, and in January 1959 he was appointed its
chairman. In consequence, King controlled publishing
interests which included two national daily and two
national Sunday newspapers along with almost one
hundred consumer magazines, more than two hundred
trade and technical periodicals, and various book
publishing interests. In 1963 all the companies were
combined by the creation of a parent company called
the International Publishing Corporation (known
informally as IPC).
 Types of magazines: NME, Nuts, Look, TV Times
 Mainstream or niche: Mainstream

4.  Established: 1947
 Who are they: Emap International Limited is a British media
company, specialising in the production of business magazines. Richard
Winfrey started by purchasing the Spalding Guardian in 1887. In
1947, under the direction of 'Pat' Winfrey, the family's newspaper titles
were consolidated to form the East Midland Allied Press. The magazine
division was founded when the staff gambled that a weekly angling
publication would be a hit - and in 1953 Angling Times was born. This
was soon joined by another weekly heavyweight when EMAP bought
Motor Cycle News from its founder in 1956. Both remain in the top 10
profit earners for the company to this day. The Winfrey family
continued to work on the management team of EMAP until the early
1980s and remained large shareholders until two thirds of the company
were sold to Bauer Media Group. On 29 January 2008, Emap PLC
completed the sale of its radio, television and consumer media
businesses to German company Bauer for £1.14bn. In March 2012, the
company announced that it would be renamed Top Right Group, and
that its magazines, events and data businesses would be separated into
three standalone companies. The Emap name will continue to be used
for the magazines operation, which accounted for around 18 percent of
the group's turnover.
 Types of magazines: Retail Week, The Architectural Review
 Mainstream or niche: Used to mainstream but has become niche

5.  Established: 1985
 Who are they: Future PLC is a media company; in
2006, it was the sixth-largest in the United Kingdom.
It publishes more than 150 magazines in fields such
as video
games, technology, automotive, cycling, films and
photography, and it is the official magazine company
of all three major games console manufacturers. The
company was founded in Somerton, Somerset in 1985
by Chris Anderson with the sole magazine Amstrad
Action. Anderson sold Future to Pearson PLC for
£52.7m in 1994, but bought it back in 1998 for
£142m. In November 2009, Future reported a fall in
profits from £9.5 million to £3.7 million (a loss of 61
percent) in the fiscal year that ended 30 September
2009. Future attributed this to problems with their
US market, hit by a fall in the general advertising
market.
 Types of magazines: ONM, Total Film, Metal
Hammer
 Mainstream or niche: Niche

6.  Looking through the portfolios that these 4 companies
have, I would choose Bauer to own my magazine. This
is because they have the music magazine genres
closest to my own, and they are also one of the best
companies for mainstream magazines.
 Also, I read several magazines that Bauer produce, and
therefore I know they produce high quality
magazines, so my magazine would be in the best
hands.

7.  Blumler and Katz’s uses and gratifications theory suggests
that media users play an active role in choosing and using
the media. The theorists say that a media user seeks out a
media source that best fulfils the needs of the user.
 The user has 4 basic needs:
 Diversion, the need to escape from everyday life and to
relax
 Personal Relationships, to fulfil the need for
companionship and to become part of a social group
 Personal Identity, to find out about ourselves and other
people that reflect us
 Surveillance, to find out what's going on around us

8. Diversion: Personal
Billboard Relationships:
magazine is good By reading
for escaping from Billboard, people
the stresses of can include
life, as it focuses on themselves in
music which is a discussions about
pleasure for most chart music
people.
Surveillance:
Exclusive
Personal Identity:
interviews within
Billboard magazine
the magazine keep
shows what the
us up to date with
majority of people
celebrities, and
are listening to right
other articles
now, which shows
inform us on what
the reader what they
is happening in the
should listen to
music world