Magazine Journalism - Lecture 1

Today kick started the final semester for us old third years. Easing us back into it, we had an introductory lecture on Magazine journalism lead by Jacqui Thornton who has had a career in Magazines and Newspapers for over 20 years.

We discussed the differences between Magazines and Newspapers, establishing that Magazines are far more business driven then newspapers are. We see it in every magazine, page spreads covered with advertisement. Take for instance, Vogue, this fashion magazine ran 2020 pages of advertising in 2007, with each page on average totalling to £16,000. Glossy magazines are designed to look identical, they are all picture led, and sit on shop selves as hotspot bribery for company promotion. Advertising is key in Media Press, I learnt a lot about media sales when I had a weeks work experience at Bauer Media with the Radio advertising sales team.

From a work force point of view, magazines have far more freelance staff then newspapers do. The readership for magazines is also much bigger then it is for newspapers;

• Tesco Magazine has the biggest readership - overtaking the Sun in 2002
• In the UK, there are around 3000 magazine titles.
• The Newspaper industry is worth £2.5 billion
• The top 3 selling magazines are: TV choice, Whats On TV and Radio Times. (Notice how these are all TV magazines, their cheap, and everyone watches TV so it appeals to a large audience.) 
• The highest non-TV magazine is Take a Break

Some key differences between Magazines and Newspapers are:

1. Subscriptions - certain magazines are subscription only, and some newspapers have e-editions online.

2. Paid for/free - Daily Mail Online for instance has free online gossip

3. Lead times - This is the time between writing the article and it being published. for magazines this is a much lengthier period, with editions coming out either weekly, every fortnight, or even monthly. 

4. Importance of advertising - the demand of advertising is far higher in glossy magazines, people share magazines around and it's far more picture led, eye catching and desirable. 

Brief History of Magazines:

The first magazine was Gentleman's magazine in 1731 in London. 

Dress and Vanity Fair - launched in 1913

Vogue was launched in the UK in 1916, during WW1! It first began in the US, but during the war shipping was limited and therefore they launched it in the UK.  

The independent was set up in 1986, which was astonishing, covers of quality pictures. 

Marie Clare - launched in 1988, but when they progressed to online, print sales dropped by 14% since early 2009, you may think that online views were booming but it was not the case.

Some magazines have also closed, including Maxim and Arena which closed in 2009, first which closed in 2008, and More! magazine which closed most recently in 2013.

The Future

Journalism has moved on heaps and bounds over the last decade, when Jacqui Thornton was studying in 1988 she was still using type writers and the spike. But now with technological advances in computers, journalism is huge online, with social media, online editions and now with the increase in use of tablets and smart phones there are apps and iPad editions. 

Flipboard is an app designed to allow consumers to tailor world news and social news to their own interests. It is our own personalised magazine that allows people to choose the news and features they want to read about. Customisation is key for innovation, allowing people to choose how they get their news and what they want to read about, similarly to that of Twitter where people all have their own list of followers of people they want to hear updates from. Apps are the future, it's on the go and nowadays most people have tablets and smart phones so its easily accessible,