Current Competition

Examples of global music magazines: rolling stones, melody maker, new music express.

Billboard magazine

This is a music magazine that covers a variety of music genres such as rock, country, pop, and dance. Unlike other music magazines, billboard targets record artists and labels, however, is also sold to the wider public. It is majorly popular with people ages 25-54. Therefore, it competes with many music magazines with similar age ranges such as Q magazine. 

Content: the content of billboard magazine ranges from music reviews, gossip, news and interviews with relevant artists. It often contains articles about relevant music artists to update and inform customers of their most beloved musical influencers. In addition, billboard is known for their list of 200 weekly record chart where they rank the top songs globally, this is done using digital streaming data. 

Style: The design of this magazine is simplistic and modern, appealing to the vast majority of their consumer base. Magazine covers often feature a photo of an artist who has an interview in the magazine with catching headlines to attract customers and entice them to buy and read the magazine. Often the cover will clearly display the magazine name and a date so customers can easily identify the magazine as well as the relevancy of the magazine edition. 

Distribution: This is a global magazine and can therefore be bought almost anywhere, some popular places to purchase this magazine include post offices, amazon, airports etc. Prices range between £1-£7. This magazine is a weekly magazine and is produced regularly to maintain relevant. 

Rolling Stones

This is a music magazine covering music, pop culture, and politics. Its primary target audience is 15-24 years olds and are often males. Additionally, according to a study in 2015, the audience were predominantly white with 71% of readers. 

Competition: Competitors would include billboard magazines due to the similar content and target audience

Content: Rolling stones consists of music and movie reviews as well as celebrity interviews and photos. Although this magazine is slightly less modern than billboard it still stays relevant with these interviews. 

Style: The rolling stones magazine uses a more classic design style for their magazines, using classic fonts and often colours too. 

Distribution: It is an international magazine and can be bought almost anywhere, some common places to buy this magazine are post offices, amazon, etc. Prices range between £2-£5. This magazine is a monthly magazine and is produced frequently to constantly update customers on current events.