Codes and conventions

ALL music magazines have a main image on the front cover, this contains a Zeitgeist (spirit of the times) this means that its mainly current artists that are shown on the front page. Through out the magazine there will be freebies these could include things that are relevant to genre of music that the magazine refers to, these freebies could be like gig guides, free CDs and posters of artists. These gigs are a form of direct advertisement, this means that the band promoter has payed for there gig to be shown, another form of indirect advertisement would be if a band or record label sent a demo/pre-release of a new album, the magazine might if they like it publish a review, this is indirect as the magazine wasn't payed by the artist to do the review they get the money from the fan base of the artist that will buy the issue for the information about the new album or single. Typically in a music magazine there will be a interview with a artist, most of the time this will be a double page spread with one page being a main image and the second the volume of text. Lists are a very common thing to see in a magazine this could be official like UK Top 40 or a fan vote from a previous issue.

Reviews are really common as said before they help to add to the size of the fan base, this increased fan base will help add to the income from sales, this fan base for the artist/band in question can be the same as who would normally buy the magazine or it could be that of a different. When looking at a audience there are 4 main aspects, age, gender,genre. With genre there is usually a link to age as you are not very likely to find a 10year old listing to heavy metal yet they might read magazines.

All these aspects are pointless if you pick the wrong distribution date/frequency, a weekly magazine will thinner and more up to date than a monthly that will be thick and possibly out dated, as the artists are famous this means that things happen and blow over before a weekly magazine would be able to comment on it, also monthly magazines are typically a lot thicker and cost more but are outdated.

Magazines are usually published by relevant publishers,like IPC Media, this publishes NME where as Bauer media publishes Mojo,the music genres that are published are relevant to the rest of the portfolio, as