A GAP IN THE MARKET- finding a unique viewpoint, who would be my main competitior and who will publish my magazine.

My first step in this task will be to investigate magazine publishers in the UK. I thought this should be the first step i take as they will be the people putting the money behind the magazine and with out having a publisher i wont be able to get the magazine to a wider audience.

There are many publisher in the United Kingdom and most specialise in publishing certain genres. I have done some research into publishers and here is what i have found.

After typing "UK magazine Publishers" into various search engines, including http://www.bing.com/, http://www.google.com/ and http://www.ask.com/, the most common results were:

• IPC Media- It is one of the UK's leading magazine and digital publishers, and has a large portfolio selling over 350million copies a year. IPC have five division with each division taking care of a different genre of magazine. They publish mainly women's weekly or monthly magazines.



• Bauer (H) Publishing- When they took over Emap's consumer arm in 2008 they leapt from being the third biggest publisher in the UK to being the biggest Publisher in Britain, overtaking IPC media at the top. Bauer continued Emap's strategy of launching radio stations based on music magazines.

These two magazines are the biggest publishers in the UK, with Bauer claiming to also be the biggest publishers in Europe as a whole.

After looking at this information I decided to make a chart of all of the music magazines I know, and then to do some research into their publishers. Here is the Results:

The Magazines Publishers:

• Future Music - Future Publishing Ltd.



• KERRANG- Bauer (H) Publishing



• NME- IPC Media



• Blender- Alpha Media Group



• MOJO- Bauer (H) Publishing



• Rolling Stone- Straight Arrow Publishing Co. Inc.



• Artrocker - Freewheelin Media

After Gathering this knowledge it appears that Bauer are responsible the greatest proportion of Music magazines, and from my earlier research most magazines in general, and that IPC Media are their greatest rival. As Bauer are already the top publisher I believe that they would be less likely to be looking for new magazines and would rather focus on maintaining the success they are having at the moment. Therfore I believe that IPC Media would be more willing to find ways to sell get to different audiences. After loooking at IPC Media they dont publish a huge amount of music magazines and the most recognisable one is NME. NME has no set audience and appeals to a general music liking audience.

After gathering all this information it is clear to me that there is a gap in the market for an Indie music magazine and that IPC Media would be the place where there is need of another music magazine.

There is one large Indie magazine and therefore I feel there is room for a competitor. This magazine is Artrocker.