Target audience

This table above shows statistics of a magazine that I am researching that is similar and in the same genre that I am basing my magazine around. It shows that Top Of The Pops magazine has a total of 169,000 readers, most of which are from the CD2DE class band with 107,000 this is 0.5% of their overall readers, showing that it is aimed to the lower class. The age of the readers are mainly 15-44, being 139,000 where as 45+ is 30,000 of their readers, also it is clear that they aim the magazine at as there is 122,000 women/girls, compared to the 47,000 men/boys that read it.

Another similar magazine that aim to this audience is Smash Hits, it has been running for 28 years, and sells around 120,063 copies a fortnight, meaning 60,000 a week. They attract an audience that use gadgets such as; laptops, MP3 players, mobile phones, TV or game consoles.

I will be aiming my magazine to a similar audience, a typical reader of this genre of magazine, would be girls aged around 13-17 that are interested in English pop music, celebrity gossip, soap operas, socializing with friends, socializing networks and may use gadgets such as mobile phones, laptops and Ipods or MP3 players, these are classified as mainstreamers as they go with the flow and don't want to stand out, and are also into popluar things, such as the things listed above. Also the readers that are in my targer audience are normally classed in the CD2DE socio-economic band and are considered to be part of the lower class, people in this band are normally considered to be from skilled manual workers such as carpenters and electricians, to semi and unskilled manual workers like drivers, post sorters and labourers, and also people subsisting on state benefits such as the unemployed and pensioners.

A target audience is important to consider when creating a magazine, this is because without knowing who the target audience is its hard to aim the magazine features and articles to certain readers, and it can also become very expensive.

Source for table above - http://www.nrs.co.uk/toplinereadership.html - National Readership Survey offers a table of statistics on a large sample of general magazines, this involves total number or readers, female or male, what socio economic band most readers are from and also the age of readers.