Institution

There are four main institutions in the magazine industry, which sell a product to with the intention to make a profit from it. These firms are IPC Media, Hearst, Bauer and Conde Nast. Throughout this post I will be exploring these magazine institutions - looking at the market place and also how these corporations control it. Between them, these four major institutions produce a range of popular magazines including Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Kerrang, NME, Q, Now and many more. Through looking at these, I can see that, due to their popularity, audiences still like things which are a bit different, or something which might stand out - as I understood throughout my AS task, wehn exploring 'indie'/alternative magazines. 

‘The magazine industry represents a hybrid structure. The top tier has an oligopolistic structure, with four firms controlling the majority of revenues in the industry. The remaining lower tier, however, resembles a monopolistic competitive market structure. Remember that in this type of structure, thee are many sellers offering products that are similar but are not perfect substitutes for one another. Numerous publishing companies vie for a share at this end of the market. The large number of individual publishers suggests that there will be several titles geared towards specific interests, yet each is somewhat unique in its presentation. Overall, the prices paid for magazines indicate more of a monopolistic competitive structure. If the entire magazine industry operated as an oligopoly prices would be similar across the industry.' - Alan B. Albarran

Albarran, as stated above, backs up my point concerning the four institutions which control the marker place. Albarran also mentions that these companies create products which are similar in terms of the messages that they convey - he says that lots of similar magazines struggle to fit the their originally set out purpose. From Alan B. Albarran's statement I can begin to understand how IPC Media, Hearst, Bauer and Conde Nast control the majority of the revenue produced in this industry. All of these firms produce many magazines, covering a range of genres each. For example, IPC Media, produce magazines such as Look, Now, NME and Marie Claire - this shows us how this company has a large proportion of the industry power. Despite this, however, in 2011 as a result of a large decline in sales, it meant that they dropped 14 percent of their circulation - mainly because of a fall in sales regarding NME. This shows me that regardless of a company's industry power, through producing a range of 'generic' magazines, which are a lot like their competitor's, sometimes it can do you as much bad as it can good. From this, I have learnt that individual magazines can become just as successful as those which are part of one of the big four companies. 

In terms of regional magazines, they seem to have been becoming increasingly popular as they produce something that a lot of other magazines can't do - they produce local information aimed directly at the specific demographic of that area. Northcliffe Media controls 84 publications, including magazines and newspapers, read by 5.8 million readers. One of these publications is 'This Is Cornwall' - a magazine focuses on the region I will be targeting. Northcliffe Media is owned by one of the largest conglomerates in Europe - this is The Daily Mail and the General Trust. In a sense this contradicts Albarran's statement as he only mentioned four companies which controlled the market place. When exploring this company however, we can see that this is one of the most powerful firms in the UK, despite 'This Is Cornwall' standing out as magazine which might be individually produced. In conclusion to this statement, I can understand that despite individual magazines becoming more and more popular, they just can't compete with a conglomerate which had an annual revenue of £1989.8 million in 2011. 

As well as 'This Is Cornwall', the magazine '24/7' has also grown to become one of the most popular free magazines around. Starting off in Cornwall and Devon and aimed at 18-30 year olds, it's content now explores Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire, Somerset, South Wales and Wiltshire. A free copy can be acquired from thousands of retails outlets as well as being able to download a copy from their website. This magazine is a good demonstration of how an individual magazine (only uses Out Of Hand Ltd for print production) can become successful, without help from a major conglomeration. Despite 24/7's popularity, it may be down to the fact that it is free rather than the content and production of the magazine. This shows us that perhaps these corporations only control this market because they're interested primarily in the revenue rather than the final production and creativity going into the magazine. From looking at 24/7 I can see how audiences do also like to explore magazines which aren't generically popular and focus more on the content of its magazine rather than revenue made.