Research Task Two : Independent Music Magazines

The term 'independent magazine' refers to the way in which the magazine is funded and published. A magazine will be labelled as independent when they do not require large funding from a big organisation to help them run the magazine, also they shall publish the magazine on their own without help from a large organisation. One key example is 'The Wire' a influential music magazine within the industry which was founded in 1982 primarily for the hot new features and jazz music. From the founding in 1982 to the sale in December 200 it was owned by Namara, a small media group in London, until the sale when a workers buy-out saw all 6 staff members take control of the magazine. However, in recent times 'The Wire' have made a change in focus of what they report. Instead of topics about Jazz and new music, they focus on underground music, experimental and new music. In addition, whilst the Wire are an independent magazine group, they still lead the market as the best music magazine around. This means that the attention brought within the industry keeps rising and rising back to its former glory due to 'the wire' gaining media and global attention. The way in which they set out to attract audiences is through flash covers and up and coming underground artists seeking recognition. This creates an amazing environment for the artists and audience as they discover a whole new world of music whilst the artists get the involvement within the music industry they work so hard for. 

However, RnR magazines are more on the subtle side when it comes to flashy front covers and underground music artists. They take an approach on the music industry as giving out recognition to artists within the Rock, blues and country music rather than jazz and underground unknown artists. The RnR magazine overall place high end music artists on their front covers to entice audiences to purchase to have an insight within their new music, tours and lives. This gives the audience a sense of inclusion within the magazine as a free copy of a CD is placed on the front cover to all purchasing members so they can enjoy the new music released by their favourite artists. Furthermore, the typical conventions of a magazine are displayed correctly showing that they do not oppose these views and follow the guidelines well to attract all different kinds of audiences. This means, with an array of audiences viewing their product, RnR as well as The wire are step by step building the magazine industry back to its former glory,