Evaluation: Institutions

When i first initially decided to make a rap orientated lifestyle magazine i intertextualised heavily with Vibe magazine. This is because i thought that the way they went about representing issues and artists was unconventional and i was gratified by it's colour scheme's and layout. Therefore i feel that after making a magazine so heavily influenced by 'Vibe' that it is only right that it would be it's main rival.
Like i said before, Vibe is a very unique magazine and therefore it takes up the majority of the margin in that particular demographic of target audience. This means that trying to go with Time Inc / Spin media, the publishers of Vibe would not want my business in terms of publishing. However, after looking at the brands that Bauer pushed forward i realised that there is a large gap in it's brand publications for a rap orientated magazine. This means that it could be very profitable for them to have a rap magazine due to their influences in superstores and shops and because it would create a rivalry between one of its publishing rivals.
Bauer is the 3rd largest publisher in the United Kingdom and has some of the highest selling magazine such as 'TV choice' and 'TV Guide' which millions of people in Britain buy every week from retail superstores. What this means is that Bauer has connections, it has the ability to place a magazine in almost any shop anywhere in the UK making the potential target audience huge and with it's only rival being 'Vibe' and the fact that Bauer doesn't have a rap orientated magazine at all i feel that it would be very successful under Bauer's publications.
Here is the comparison of my Feature Article for 'Vermin' and the Feature Article from 'Vibe' As you can see i have intertextualised the style to attract the demographical target audience.

The problem with using a large publishing company like Bauer means that the product will no longer become an independent magazine and under contractual agreement Bauer force you to take certain pieces out of the magazine, put in advertising that you might not agree with or tell you what to feature entirely. This could become a big problem due to the type of content the lifestyle of this magazine would represent and if they decided to censor or remove parts that i felt was important then this could cause problems. However, if i chose to go with a self-publishing company then there would be no limit on frequency or in-frequency and the magazine would be able to report and express what it wanted to rather than what Bauer knows will make them money.
However, due to Bauer being a large publishing company it will have a very large advertising pull and already have connections with brands to advertise in the magazine and places to sell and strategically place the magazine to attract more of the target audience.
Another unique selling point of using Bauer is that it has huge connections within the TV and digital industry. Bauer currently has a 50% stake in box TV with some of its most popular channels including Heat, Kiss, Kerrang and Magic!. They also have sister channels for Kiss and Kerrang meaning that they have radio stations as well. This type of convergence and variety is exactly what is needed to help get the magazine off the ground by branching out and reaching the target audience through the use of convergence. Convergence in media is the use of selling your product in another form of medium. For example, Putting a website link on your magazine allows users to look at your product on other forms of media and therefore increases traffic flow towards more of your products. This use of advertising and integration of convergence is very modern and has become a zeitgeist standard for magazines to use. Bauer is the king of convergences and using them as my magazine publisher would allow for expansion into other potential forms of media. The reason this is so important is because a large majority of magazine titles are rejected or get stopped publishing within the first year, either due to the lack of a target audience or because the content and material of the magazine itself is no longer selling. This is why it is important to use convergence and try to get my magazine on more than one platform, perhaps even digitally so that it can be used on tablets and with ever increasing use of hardware compared to physical media e.g. magazines, newspapers etc. Therefore i feel that Bauer would be perfect to give the magazine a chance at becoming something due to its connections into radio and TV, because these days lots of self-publishing magazine fold due to not being able to adapt or change.
Overall i feel that Bauer is a solid choice of publishing Institution as it would allow my magazine the best chance of expansion and reaching its target audience. I feel it is also a safe option compared to a self-publishing company as far too many fold and it is difficult to get your magazine out there without any already existing connections. It is predicted that usually 7/10 titles will fail within there first year meaning that there is no room for error and i need the right publisher for support.
Here is My vermin Contents page on the left. It conforms to lots of conventions of a contents page for a music magazine and is very intertextual to the Vibe contents page on the Right. Originally i did not have the image of my feature article in the contents page as i thought it looked cleaner and more gratifying to the style of the magazine. However i had to use the image as 4 Images were required to be taken and used in the magazine.