Jude White
AS Level Media Studies
Pricing and Page Numbers
My research has revealed that a magazine's target audience, as well as the frequency of publication and advertising, are key players in the pricing of the magazine. I have analysed this in terms of Mojo, Q and Kerrang!.
In the case of Kerrang!, many factors come into consideration when discussing the considerably low price of £2.20 per issue. Firstly, Kerrang! is a weekly publication. This means that although its circulation per issue is considerably lower than some of its competitors, at only 37,603 units per issue, it can make up for this with more issues per month. Kerrang! sells four issues a month, compared to Q and Mojo's one issue, this puts Kerrang!s monthly circulation at a considerably large 150,412 units. Therefore, Bauer can afford to sell Kerrang! at almost half the price of some of its other publications, as it sells more copies. Another reason for this low pricing decision relates to Kerrang!'s target audience. The mean reading age for Kerrang! is 25. This shows that the majority of Kerrang!s readers are yound people, and young people are less likely to have a lot of money to spend on themselves, what with not being as likely to hold a stable, well-paying job. Young people also have more free time for this very reason, meaning that by releasing four issues per month Bauer maximises sales by providing fresh material for this audience to buy and read through in this spare time. However, to make this cost-effectrive for Bauer, the number of pages in an issue must be less than that of a monthly magazine. In the issue I looked at, the number of pages in Kerrang! was 63, far less than either Mojo or Q.
With Mojo, the price is unsurprisingly over double that of Kerrang!, at £4.80. Justifications for this abound, but first of all we must consider that Mojo is a monthly publication, making its circulation per issue and therefore per month just 70,667. This is less than half of the circulation of Kerrang! Therefore, its price must increase to compensate. There is also the fact that the audience of Mojo has an average age of 37, and as such are more likely to have a disposable income. Therefore, Bauer can charge more money per issue for Mojo and still make enough sales to turn a good profit. This also means that the number of pages in Mojo can and must be greater, due to the higher price of the magazine. Buyers need to feel they are getting good value for their money or they will not buy the magazine again. Mojo also gives away a free CD with almost every issue, adding to the cost of each issue to Bauer. The number of pages is generally high, with the issue I looked at having 139.
£
Q's price is fairly high, at £3.99. This could be to do with the sheer length of the specials in Q, often as many as 20 pages in length, somtimes more. These cost time and ink to produce, and so this has to be compensated for. Q's circulation is 88,420 units per month, slightly more than Mojo but not anywhere close to that of Kerrang!. This would explain why Mojo and Q are the most similar in price. However, I think here more than anywhere else the age and circumstances of the target audience come into play here. The average age of the 'Q' reader is 29. This is a very good age group to sell an expensive magazine to, as they will likely have a decent wage, but still, as Bauer puts it, be able to spend this disposable income on themselves, due to a lack of family commitments. As such, they are more likely to spend large sums of money on entertainment products such as music magazines. The number of pages
I feel that like Kerrang!, my target audience would be young rock fans, and as such a weekly magazine would be the most appropriate format for my magazine. However, unlike Kerrang!, I will be attempting to appeal to a very wide variety of rock fans, whereas for the most part Kerrang! tends to be more rooted in modern bands, meaning there is a gap in the market for accessible variety. My magazine will feature around 60 pages per issue, and will be printed on lower-quality paper than a monthly publication. Therefore, I will charge £2.60 for my product, similar to Kerrang!'s pricing, so as to be a viable competitor for Kerrang!'s audience. I will charge slightly more than Kerrang! due to the fact my magazine is new and will need to make a name for itself to increase sales before being able to drop its price.