1. Music Magazine Audience
Research
I conducted a survey to find out some information about my target audience. I
wanted to find out how often they listen to music, how much disposable
income they have, what they spend their money on, what magazines they buy
or are subscribed to, what they would like to read about and how much they
would spend on a magazine.
To collect this data I created a survey using survey monkey and posted it onto
social networking sites for people to answer. I received 50 responses to my
survey.

2. Questionnaire
• Are you male or female?
• Male-48%, Female-52%
• Do you currently buy any music magazines? If so, please state in the comments section.
• Yes-20%, No-80%
• Comments
• NME x5, Total Guitar, Q, Kerrang x5, Rocksound x2, Metal Hammer x2
• How old are you?
• 17 x22, 16 x21, 18 x2, 19 x2, 20, 56
• What is your favourite genre/s of music?
• Indie-50%, Rock-48%, Pop-42%, Rap-12%, Soul-12%, Hip-hop-26%, Classic-8%
• Other
• Metal-8%, Folk-4%, Japanese-2%, Western-2%, Industrial-2%, Alternative Rock-4%, Jazz-2%, Grime-2%, R&B-2%, Drum and Bass-2%,
Dubstep-2%, House-2%, Ambient-2%, 8-bit-2%, Jungle-2%, Dance-4%, Country-2%, Emo-2%, Techno-2%, Ragga Tech-2%, Hardtrance-
2%, Progressive-2%, Post-Hardcore-2%.
• How much would you be willing to spend on a music magazine?
• 50p-£1 – 18%, £1-£2 – 50%, £2-£3 –22%, £3-£4 – 8%, More than £4 – 2%
• How much disposable income do you have a week?
• £0-10 – 36.0%, £10-20 – 26.0%, £20-30 – 14.0%, £30-40 – 2.0%, £40-50 – 2.0%, £50-60 – 4.0%, £60-70 – 6.0%, £80+ – 10%
• Are you currently subscribed to any music magazines?
• Yes-6%, No-94%
• Magazines: Rocksound-4%, Kerrang-2%
• Other than music, what would you like to see in a music magazine?
• Sport-28%, Fashion-54%, Technology-34%, News-26%, Gossip-32%, Nothing-16%
• What sort of things do you spend your money on?
• Technology-38%, Games-32%, Clothes-86%, Music-52%, Films-42%
• Other: Food-6%, Transport Costs-4%
• How much time do you spend listening to music a day?
• N/A-2%, Up to 1 Hour-8%, 1-2 Hours-24%, 2-3 Hours-26%, 4-5 Hours-16%, 5+ Hours-24%

3. Other than music, what would you like to see in a music magazine?
Sport
Fashion
Technology
News
Gossip
Nothing
The qualitative data I have collected shows me that the majority of people
don’t currently buy or subscribe to any music magazines, only 1/5 of my
sample buy music magazines. I also found out that the top three most
popular subjects to talk about other than music are fashion, technology
and gossip and the vast majority of people spend their money on clothes,
with music and films the 2nd and 3rd most popular.

4. Strengths
• There are both strengths and weaknesses with
my research methods. One strength is that I
have a fairly strong sample size and all the
responses were serious and not people
messing around.
• Another strength is that I asked a variety of
questions providing me with good
quantitative data about psychographics and
demographics.

5. Weaknesses
• One weakness of my research methods is that not all of my data applies to just my
target audience as indie music isn’t one of everyone who answered my survey’s
favourite music genres.
• Furthermore, the people who answered my survey are just people that I have as
friends on social networking sites and people studying at the same college as
me, so they will generally be around the same age as me. Although this fits into
the age range of my target audience, it doesn’t provide information from a range
of different ages among my target group.
• To improve my sample I could have hand-picked people to complete my survey
after finding out if they listen to indie music. This would mean that all the data I
collect would be to do with my target audience and would, therefore, be more
reliable.
• Because I used a volunteer sample, only people who have the time to do the
survey or are my friends and I have personally asked them do it, will complete
it, therefore, I’m not getting the best range of people that I could get by using
other methods such as interviews. Interviews would have also given me more
qualitative data.

6. How This Will Influence My Planning
• My questionnaire has told me that the maximum
amount that people would spend on a magazine on
average is £2, therefore I will not base my magazine at
a price higher than this.
• I have also learnt that the majority of people have a
disposable income lower than £30 but 10% of my
sample have £80+. This will help when considering the
advertising pull of my magazine.
• My audience research also tells me that the majority of
people listen to music for more than 2 hours a day so
they would happily look at new bands and new music
covered by my magazine.