As part of my background research into what audiences want in a music magazine, I conducted a questionnaire. I asked 30 participants 10 questions, all of them from different age ranges.
The questions varied as I needed to know about certain things, such as musical preferences, so that they would help benefit me when I was to make my magazine.
Example Questionnaire:
Results:
Question 1:
"Are male or female?"
This is a simple question to show how many males and females tend to read music magazines. My result shows that males are more likely to read music magazines and have a greater interest in them.
Question 2:
"What age range are you in?"
The main ranges seem to be 15 to 19, 25 to 29, 30 to 34 and 40 to 44. This will help me know what audience I should target.
Question 3:
"What music genres are you most interested in?"
I only used the genres of music that I was interested in making a magazine for. The most popular genres appear to be Acoustic, Old School (ie Classic Rock), Pop and Punk. This will influence my decision, however, the results were very close.
Question 4:
"Do you prefer Weekly or Monthly music magazines?"
Just less than half of my sample would prefer monthly magazines, which will influence whether my magazine will be a monthly or a weekly publication. Some people said they prefer monthly magazines as there is more in an issue and they are better value for money. However, many people said they prefer magazines that come less than monthly (ie fortnightly).
Question 5:
"How often do you tend to buy music magazines?"
The results from this question supports the fact that people prefer monthly magazines.
Monthly magazines have to be big enough with many features that would last for a couple of weeks, which will help me with the producing of a contents page.
Question 6:
"How many different magazines do you tend to buy?"
More than half of my participants tend to buy just one type of magazine. What was interesting in the result of this question was that nearly all of the people who answered that they but three magazines were female.
Question 7:
"How much are you willing to spend on a music magazine?"
The most suitable price for a magazine according to my results is in the range of £2.50 to £2.99, yet once again the results are very close. No one seems to want to spend more than £3.50. However, if I were to make a monthly magazine, it may well have to cost more than this price as it will be bigger than a typical weekly magazine.
Not many people seem to be swayed by the situation of their favourite band being featured in the magazine or if there is a really good pug.
Question 8:
"What attracts you to a music magazine?"
The two most popular answers were "I always get the same one" and "If my favourite band is featured" and the "Cover story". No one is interested in text, and only a few people get swayed by the colour, and most of these people where men. A lot of people get the same magazine, which emphasises that my magazine will have a lot of competition.
Question 9:
"Do you visit music magazine websites?"
My results for the question show that just under half of the participants tend to visit music magazines often, however a lot of them never do. If many people visit such websites, they will tend to not buy the related magazine, unless there is something particularly good features in that issue that they can't see online. The technology of these music websites are a main competition for magazines.
Question 10:
For the last question, I asked the participants to name the first three music magazines they could think of.
I thought this would be a useful to show the most popular genres, and therefore the competition that my magazine would have. This graph shows the most popular magazines that participants could think of:
The results I have gathered from my questionnaire will be useful for the production of my magazine. I can now see what things an audience are most attracted by and what they wish to see in a music magazine.
Target Audience:
I have decided to target males of ages 28 to 35 who have a keen interest in acoustic music, acousitc guitars and genres such as folk and country.
