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1. THE MAGAZINE PITCH
WORKING TITLE: What will the magazine be called?
The title of the magazine will be ‘Beat’. I chose this because it’s not a name of a music
magazine already in the industry and will make mine stand out. The idea of this name is
that it’s an easily recognisable musical term, which will therefore make the reader spot
straight away that the magazine is a music magazine. Beat is a very quick, snappy word to
say, meaning that it will stand out in the reader’s mind. The word beat can be linked with
every single genre of music, because a beat is what music is based on, which links to the
wide variety of my magazine. I want my audience to be able to familiarise with the title, so
the fact that a beat is from just about every genre of music, it will make them believe that in
the magazine there’ll be something for them to enjoy. I plan to make it a magazine that
mixes together a variety of genres, similar to ‘Q’ Magazine. As it’s a magazine of various
music genres, I aimed to choose a short, quick word that is associated with most genres,
which is where ‘Beat’ came from. I decided to just use one short word for the name of my
magazine, because it means the less words/letters in it, the larger the font can be of the
word I do have. I want this to be the case, so that it really stand out on the front cover
page of the magazine when it’s sat on the shelf. Another reason for my choice to use just
one word, is that all three of the magazines I researched for my Textual Analysis used just
the one word, ‘Kerrang’, ‘Mixmag’ and ‘Q’, with the latter actually only using one letter. This
makes the title stick in the reader’s head as there’s less to remember. Another reason this
could stand out for the reader is that they may recognise that a beat could be a reference to
any genre of music, intriguing them into finding out more about this new music magazine
and about what types of genres it includes. If I find that people believe my title should be
two words instead of one, since there are already a large amount of one-word title music
magazines out there, I will be open to changing this at a later date. But I predict that this
short, quick one word ‘Beat’ will be more attractive to the audience and have more of an
effect on them.

2. MAGAZINE GENRE: What music genre will the magazine focus on?
Instead of focusing on one specific genre, I’ve decided that I will focus on a wide
range of musical genres to suit different audiences. During my research, I found that
Q was the most successful of the three magazines that I looked at and I think the
main reason for this is that it doesn’t have a specific genre. I will do this similarly
and include a variety of different music tastes so that there’s something for
everybody. During my survey, when I asked my audience which genres were their
favourite from a certain list, they came back very close together. Therefore, I will
target all these different people by pulling in a wide variety of music. By choosing to
focus on a variety of music, it means I can help my readers to experiment and try
something new when it comes to their music taste, as there will be things in the
magazine that they wouldn’t usually try. The audience can then appreciate the music
which they like, as well as challenging themselves by exploring new genres/styles.
The readers of my magazine will then have to be open to trying new things. They
will have to want to get something from the magazine that they haven’t heard
before, instead of just looking for the one genre they like the best. The choice to
use varied genres also links well with the working title of the magazine. A ‘beat’ can
be from any genre of music, which links with the fact that you don’t know what will
be in the magazine each issue, it could be from any genre of music, just like a beat.
Focusing on different genres also gives me the opportunity to make every page
different. Instead of every page being focused on different aspects of pop or
different aspects of rock, etc. they could be focused on absolutely any type of music,
giving my articles a very wide variation. The only downside of focusing on a wide
range of genres is that it wouldn’t appeal to someone with a limited music taste, for
example the 16 year old boy that I interviewed for my audience research, as he said
the only type of music he was into was rock. This is because, although my magazine
will feature aspects of rock as well as other genres, the fact that it’s a broad range
means that there will only be a maximum of a few pages dedicated to each genre,
unlike magazines like Kerrang! which are fully dedicated to their one specialist
genre. My readers will need to have a wide music taste and be willing to try new
things, more like the 32 year old female that I also interviewed.

3. FREQUENCY AND COVER PRICE: When will the magazine be published and how
much will it cost?
The magazine will be released every fortnight. This is because I didn’t want to release it
every single week, because that would mean that it’d be a struggle to come up with top
quality articles every single week, and make it long enough to read. However, I didn’t want
to release it monthly either, because I think it will take the reader 1-2 weeks to get through
the whole magazine, leaving them another 2-3 weeks to wait around until the next issue
comes out. It will be in the shops every other Monday. I’ve chosen Monday as it’s the
beginning of the week, therefore the reader is more likely to remember that they need
something from the shop on this day. It will stick in their heads as it’s one of their first tasks
to do at the beginning of the week. They don’t have to wait for it throughout the week, they
can get it straight away. One advantage of releasing it fortnightly instead of weekly is that
the quality of photographs, paper and articles will be better, because there’s been more
time to prepare it, which means the editor/photographer can spend more time perfecting
everything before it goes to print. It also means that as the magazine is on the shelf for two
weeks, it has two weeks to earn as much money as possible instead of just one. This will
help the economic side of the magazine, which will also boost the quality of paper, articles &
photos etc. Another advantage is that it can have more contents than a weekly music
magazine. It’s also cheaper than Q Magazine, which is the biggest ‘general’ British music
magazine in the industry at the moment. £2.99 is just under £3. I chose to do this, because
it will make the audience think it’s a lot cheaper than it actually is as they see the 2 first
instead of seeing a 3, but in reality they’re actually spending £3.

4. ATTITUDE: How will the magazine be presented to the audience?
In the magazine, I will use a variety of boldness, emphasis and regular text. There will
be certain aspects of the magazine which I will want the audience to read first before
anything else. This could be because I think it might appeal to them or it could be because
they need to read it to understand the rest of the text. To do this I will put emphasis on
these aspects. I will use a variety of ways to do this. One example is that they will be big
and bold. It will be large and fill a lot of space and will be in a very bold font. Another way
of doing this is by using the colour scheme. Because my magazine is focused on a range of
music genres, my colour scheme will also be quite varied. I will use black, whites and greys
for darker, louder music articles, such as dubstep, rock, metal, however ‘hot’ colours like
red, orange and yellow will be used in other easy-listening music, such as acoustic, classical
and novelty. Therefore, bearing in mind what music genre is on the page, the colour scheme
will be reflected in this and I will use the colour which is used least on the rest of the page
for the text that I want to stand out. As it’s the colour used least on the rest of the page, it
will draw the audience’s eyes to it. If the part I want the audience to see is an image, this
will be different however. I will play with the image’s brightness, opacity etc. to make it
really stand out. This could be making it brighter when the page is dark or lighter when the
page is dark. This immediately will draw the eyes of the reader to it. Another way to make
an image stand out could be by using photo frames. This will draw attention to the photo,
because a frame is like the equivalent of making a text bold. It makes it larger and makes it
stand out. I will also be sure to use a lot of pull quotes, taglines and anchorage. I
discovered in my research that these are effective when trying to draw in a reader. Pull
quotes make the reader wonder what context they were said, prompting them to read the
article and find out this information. Taglines and anchorage can often provide more
information about something than just the headline or title, informing the reader of what
they’re letting themselves in for if they read the article. They can also provide a bit of
mystery when they don’t tell the whole story, as the reader wonders what is meant by a
certain phrase. Either way, they are effective techniques and definitely something that I will
be looking to use in my magazine. The fact that I’m using so many different techniques to
emphasize certain parts of it shows contrasts throughout the magazine, which will interest
the audience into why each page is different. This may lead them to reading other articles
that they wouldn’t normally read if it’s laid out differently, which is what I was aiming for
with my magazine. With my layouts, I will try and please everybody as well, because some
pages will have nearly no images and just all text, however some will be dominated by
images, with a bit of text to go with it, meaning there’s different choices for people who
enjoy reading long articles and those who don’t. And these images will be varied too. Some
will be live concert images and some will be photoshoot images, to also appeal to wide
ranges of people. All of these different aspects help to represent the variety and diversity of
my magazine.

5. STYLE: What will make this magazine different to other ones?
Well as I spoke about in the attitude section of the pitch, the magazine will have a lot of
boldness and emphasis, to make sure that the audience are engaged throughout the whole
magazine issue. But the biggest feature of my magazine that will make it different to others
is that as well as featuring famous artists of different genres, there will also be features on
artists that the audience are unlikely to have heard of. This is because during my survey, a
number of people said that they’d like a music magazine to have features on new artists
that they haven’t heard of, to help them get into new genres/styles of music that they
wouldn’t normally listen to, or to hear about other artists in their favourite genre, who they
haven’t heard of. Therefore, a lot of my magazine will be focused on unknown or upcoming
artists to balance out the big artists everyone likes to hear about. Having such a wide variety
in my magazine means that the audience may very well want to buy the next issue which is
what I would like, because the aim is to make as much money from the magazine as
possible. I will have a variety of features on these different artists. Some will be reviews of
albums/singles, others will be focused articles on the people involved themselves, for
instance an interview with Ed Sheeran, where the audience really feels like they’re getting to
know him, due to the questions and answers which are being asked/given. There will also
be articles based on ‘behind-the-scenes’ knowledge where the article will focus on the
making of albums/singles, the writing of songs and life as a musician. This will interest most
people as they will be finding out more about their favourite artists that they didn’t know
before. The magazine will therefore pride itself on giving out unknown information as well
as providing tips on new and upcoming artists that the reader may enjoy listening to. It will
be a breath of fresh air for the music industry, as there is no magazine like this that focuses
heavily on budding new musicians just as much as it looks at successful artists. The
magazine will also aim to kick-start the careers of these artists that haven’t quite fully made
it yet.

6. TYPICAL MAGAZINE CONTENTS: What will be in each issue?
To fit with the theme of the magazine, there will be a huge variety of different contents in
each issue of the magazine. The main reason for this is to again provide something for
everybody in my magazine. Some people prefer interviews to find out more about specific
people, however others prefer reviews to analyse existing music products. This also makes
the magazine a much more interesting read than simply having 20 interviews with different
people. Hopefully, this will make the reader see that it really is worth the money, because
they’re getting a magazine full of contents. So some examples of contents from the
magazine are interviews. As I’ve already mentioned, I will focus on a variety of different
artists, so some of the interviews will be with established musicians and others will be with
lesser/unknown artists. On these interviews, some will have a 3:1 ratio of images to text;
however others will be 1:1. This is because some people prefer to have a lot of pictures to
look at, whereas others prefer it when the interview has a lot to read about the
person/group featured, because they did come there to find out information after all. The
interviews will be split into two different types. The first type of interview will be one created
by the magazine itself. I will write the questions which will be asked to the artist, based on
what I think will appeal to the audience. The other type of interview will be a question &
answers interview. This is where I will ask the readers to send in their questions, via various
ways, and the best 5 or 6 of these will be chosen to be asked to the interviewee. There will
be about a 4:1 ratio of regular interviews to Q & A’s in the magazine. This is not set in stone
however and could easily change. Another type of article will be the featured news articles.
Here, any big stories going on in the news to do with the music genre will be analysed. For
instance, TV Shows such as The X Factor and The Voice nearing their climax would be
analysed so that the magazine can give our verdict on who should win. A third type of
article to be featured in my magazine will be reviews. There will be reviews of all sorts of
things, for example individual songs, artists, festivals, albums and award ceremonies. This is
so that the audience can hear what something is like, if they were considering purchasing it.
At the base of each review, there will be a small section saying ‘If you like this artists you
may also like…’ and three other lesser known artists will be listed. Many people in my
questionnaire said that they wanted to hear about other artists they might not know about.
This is one very good way of communicating this. My magazine will conclude with a quiz
page over a double page spread, including things such as wordsearches, crosswords and
spot the differences as well as 10-question quizzes. This will appeal to the slightly younger
audience, as well as the audience who just like quizzes. This page will be very colourful and
bright. Unlike other magazines, I have decided against giving away freebies every issue,
because it came to my attention that I costs an awful lot to get hold of them in the first
place, and although giving them away for free would definitely draw in more people, I think
I would make a larger profit from the regular audience than I would from the regular
audience + the ones that come just for the freebies, due to the cost of these in the first
place.

7. READER PROFILE: Who would be my ideal reader?
Ewan is 25 and lives in Salford, Greater Manchester. He’s been listening to all sorts of
different music all his life, after growing up in a packed house of six, where everyone was a
mad fan of a different genre of music. He’s grown up, being fed with music from classical to
dubstep. Ewan ALWAYS remains completely on point with the newest music to be released
and can always be trusted to tell his friends about what’s new in the industry. He uses
YouTube on a daily basis, always has his iTunes account stocked up with cash and has a full
premium Spotify membership. Ewan has a variety of hobbies, from attending regular music
festivals to playing guitar in the worship band at his local church; he really is the pinnacle of
what music is all about. He spent three years studying music at the University of
Manchester, whilst balancing his studies with a part-time job at HMV. Ewan has now earnt
himself a full-time management job there, having worked there for a total of six years,
saying:
“There’s no better job than when you
work somewhere you love!”
Ewan lets absolutely nothing get ahead of his passion for music, no matter what that may
be and is always insistent on finding more artists to really get his teeth into. His music really
reflects in the way he lives his life, as he tries to live it out to the full, making the most of
every single moment. He likes to think of the music as another limb as he is always nearby
to a speaker, playing music himself or attached to a pair of headphones, even in his sleep.
It’s his source of breath and is absolutely not afraid to let people know about it.
KEY STATISTICS:
MALE: 57.9%
FEMALE: 42.1%
AGE: 18 – 29: 68%
SOCIAL GRADE ABC1: 71%
READERS WITH A ‘WIDE’ MUSIC TASTE: 82%

8. MISSION STATEMENT: What does the magazine aim to achieve?
Beat aims to share the knowledge of music in a way that suits anybody. The list of music
genres featured in the magazine is so wide that no matter what you like, there will be
something for you in every issue. There is absolutely no existence genre that isn’t covered
at some point in Beat magazine. The main goal is to provide the audience with information
about upcoming artists or budding home musicians, while still fuelling their passions for the
big-name stars. The priority really is to refuel and give even more power to the reader’s
passion of music. A big aim is for the reader to really extend their music taste and hopefully
try at least one new thing each issue that they wouldn’t usually consider trying out. Beat
will pride itself on the relationship with the reader, as we will ensure that the reader has an
input in the magazine by offering many opportunities throughout the magazine to send in
articles or ideas for the magazine. We want every reader to feel valued and to be able to
feel the pride of contributing something to the magazine. We want them to have an
emotional connection with Beat that will make them want to continue to buy it for years and
years to come.

9. STYLE SHEET
FONTS:
Masthead
Font: BonJovi
Size: 98pt
STRAPLINE/SLOGAN:
Font: Aharoni
Size: 26pt
THE MUSIC FOR EVERYONE
HEADLINES
Font: Brittanic Bold
Size: 48pt
INTERVIEWSCOVERLINES
Font: LateNoise
Size: 36pt
DISCOVERING THE UNDISCOVERED
MAIN TEXT:
Font: Tahoma
Size: 8-12pt
DROP CAPS TEXT:
Font: Comic Sans MS
Size: 24-36pt
PULL QUOTES TEXT:
Font: Century Gothic
Size: 36pt
‘THE BEST EXPERIENCE’
COLOUR SCHEMES:
As my magazine is all about music
variety, it will not have a constant
colour scheme running through the
whole magazine. However, there
will be a constant colour scheme of
blacks-whites and greys for the
front cover. Many people in my
survey said this colour scheme
would appeal to them. This is why
my logo is the colour that it is. It
will give my magazine identity as it
will be the same every issue. The
blacks also create a sense of
mystery, because you don’t know
what’s going to be inside each
issue.