EVALUATION - Question 3: 'What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?'

One of the best known magazine distributors is IPC. This company is responsible for the distribution of one of the world's most popular music magazines; NME.

Obviously as NME is a music magazine, this automatically means that it has factors in common with my own magazine, the clearest of these being the genre: music. However, the ideology of NME is also similar with that of my own music magazine, FML. I drew inspiration from the name of 'NME'; I thought that it was a catchy and memorable name for a magazine, especially seeing as it is consists only of three letters. The ideology of NME is also similar to that of my own magazine. For example, the full name of NME is the New Musical Express. This magazine promises to give it's audience the latest updates in new music, bringing the most interesting new artists and exclusive interviews. This is very similar to my own magazine; on the front cover alone there is promise of a feature on the most exciting new producers in music, as well as an exclusive and rare interview with a fictional and respected artist.

IPC also distributes well known lifestyle magazines such as Look and Marie Claire. These magazines are often focussed on the latest celebrity gossip, trends and lifestyles; something which teenage girls are typically interested in. The fact that IPC distributes these magazines further shows that it would be an appropriate distributor for my own magazine, as my magazine also has elements of lifestyle magazines, particularly in the interviews whereby a lot of the questions ask focus on artists' personal lives so as to have maximum appeal to the teenage girls that the magazine is intended for.

One of the latest processes involving the distribution of NME through IPC Media was the Sack the DJ partnership with Dell computers. This was a competition in which the audience had to compile a playlist of the songs they would pick if they were DJing, with an opportunity of playing the playlist to an audience at a Club NME destination somewhere around the world. This process enabled the audience to interact with and be a part of the magazine; one of the most important parts of a magazine is making the audience feel as though they are part of an exclusive community. My magazine offers exclusive prizes known as 'FML Freebies' as a means of including the audience in the community of the magazine, and therefore this further demonstrates that not only FML and NME have more in common, but also that IPC Media would be a very appropriate distributor for my magazine.

I also researched into other well-known magazine publishers. One of the examples that I found was Rhinegold Publishing - the information screen for which I have shown on the right of this paragraph. This publishing company specialises in classical music, and is one of the leading publishers in this sector. Due to the fact that this company specialises in classical music, it would not be appropriate for the distribution of my own magazine, because this it does not discuss this particular genre of music. Therefore, my first choice for distribution would be IPC advertising, for the reasons shown above.