The impact of technical advances on regional magazines.

Over the past 10 years technology has become more and more advanced. With things like online versions and subscriptions, magazines have had to up their game and create these online experiences like the big magazines, to widen their popularity to cater for all audiences. However, these movements are proving fatal for some small and regional magazines. Those unable to afford, or create online versions of their magazines face a loss in the market. With more and more people checking the news and reading articles online, big and small magazine companies are seeing a fall in shop sales.


With the younger generation (ages 14-18) being raised around technology and everything on tablets and phones, they are less likely to go in to a shop and buy a magazines just as the older generation would. This connotes that the future of material magazines is dwindling. Before we know it, buying material magazines will be a thing of the past. Of course this will have an impact on magazines sales.


Advances in computer technology also mean that producing magazines is a much quicker process than it has been in the past. Magazines can be sent via email, and printed wirelessly by machines within minutes. This also means that mass amounts of magazines can be done quickly and effectively. However this does cost money. Which needs to be taken into consideration.


In terms of exhibition, my magazine will be advertised online, in newspapers, on leaflets and on posters in stores. The idea is to place leaflets in areas which the magazines appeals to people. For example sports centres, athletics tracks, gyms etc. Although my magazine is a regional magazine, online exhibition will give it a wider spread audience, with people all over the country looking and becoming interested in running in our region. 


Consumption of magazines: In addition to the 25% drop in print-newspaper consumption, magazine readership has fallen by 19% in the same four-year period. Although traditional television use has also fallen, it has declined by a much smaller amount—only 6% since 2010. ZenithOptimedia says that it expects consumption of print newspapers will continue to drop by almost 5% per year over the next several years, and magazines almost as much.

Institutional research and legal restraints.

Bauer media is a large company in charge of many different types of magazines from fashion to sport. Because my chosen genre of magazine is sport here are a few sport magazines produced by Bauer. 

Golf world, Match and Today golfer are all part of the Bauer media institute.

Rodale is a magazine publisher which publishes many sport magazines and many running magazines. It is the publisher of Men's Health, Prevention, Women's Health, Runner's World, Running Times, Bicycling, and Rodale's Organic Life, Rodale Inc. is the global voice of health and wellness, providing actionable, authoritative, and engaging content.




In terms of UK based magazines publishers, Wireless group plc, formerly U TV Media plc  is a broadcasting and new media company based in Belfast, in Northern Ireland. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. It produces magazines such as:Sport.

For my magazine,as it is regional I will be aiming for a regional publisher. A publisher such as DC Media, who are based in Truro, Cornwall. I think they will be a good publisher for my magazines as they publish popular magazines such as Cornwall today.







Regarding the regulatory body regulating my area, IPSO is the one in charge.

Legal restraints When it comes to publishing a magazine, there are many legal constraints which the company must abide by and take into account, especially magazines that focus people and gossip. The reason being is that it is very easy to represent a person or group of people in the wrong way within the magazine and what the editors write, with that said, there are rules and legal constraints that are set out on what magazines can publish and what they cant publish. The people who decide upon what can and cannot be published is a company called 'Press Complaints Commission' (PCC) and also 'Advertisement Standards Agency' (ASA) who are both based in the UK and are the regulating bodies for publishing and advertising.There are many laws under the Human Rights Act 1998 which prohibit bodies from defamation, trespassing, nuisance, surveillance and harassment and if breached are able to take legal action which includes suing the company from damages to get compensation. When it come to photos and images you have to be very careful on what photos are taken, especially common photos of celebrities on the beach where they are half dressed  and young children etc. If I have an older target audience, the photos I use, will have to appropriate for target audience age I am aiming the magazine at.

History and background of magazines and regional magazines

Magazine publishing has been a profitable industry for over 100 years but technological advances, as the article and graphs above show, has changed the face of the industry at different points in time. As you cans see from the graph above digital publishing of magazines seems to be the future and whee profit lies, however, some consumers still prefer to consume texts in printed form. As this is the case I will be making a print version of my regional running magazine and an accompanying digital version to accompany for everyone in my target audience.
In terms of local running magazines there are no competitors(as the screenshot below shows), this is why I am creating my own one for my county as there is an obvious gap in the market in which I could fill to gross a profit.

However, I will need to compete against traditional regional magazines that dominate market share in the area such as Cornwall Today, My Cornwall and Cornwall Life.

I will also need to compete against national running magazines such as Runners World, Running Times and Womens running.

The first regional magazines were released in 1731 in London, where the release of 'The gentleman's Magazine' was released by Edward Cave. Now, it is unusual to see a regional magazine aimed at a specific gender.

Regional Magazines are typically released monthly and contain details on the area, or county they are from. Regional magazines have a purpose to build the knowledge of  people who live in the regional area the magazine is about. You are able to subscribe to regional magazines, just as you are with larger, well known magazines. Because, regional magazines are so specific, they tend to only be released once a month. This is in order to include enough information for the issue. However, this does increase the price of the product. Due to it's niche target audience and how packed full of information the magazine is, on it's monthly release, the price is a lot higher than a weekly published magazine. Regional magazines range between £3.70-£6.00 in price, per monthly issue. Regional magazines don't tend to have a specific gender based audience, however you can usually tell which way each issue sways towards, by the front cover image. It is very unusual for a regional magazine to aim at one specific gender though. Regional magazines can be bought by people all around the country. You do not have to be from that particular region, to read their magazine. Regional magazines are trying to branch out to a wider audience, by selling their magazine outside their region, as well as in it. This enables people who no longer live in this region, to keep  up to date with what is going on in the area.

Advanced Portfolio

I have chosen to create the first four pages from an original regional magazine for my A2 Media Coursework brief, as well as the website and billboard advertisement.I think that this will be a great brief for me as I am very interested in photography and the style of pictures I will be taking for the magazine. I decided to do a website and a billboard advertisement to go with my magazine as I prefer creating visual media. I like the idea of a regional magazine because having lived in cornwall all my life and being very interested in athletics I have many pictures of Cornish athletes. A regional magazine about Cornish athletes will be appealing to locals and attract a wider audience from around the country.

Evaluation

Part one of my evaluation.

Part two of my evaluation.

Final Front Cover

Final Contents Page