evaluation: institutions

Media institutions are companies that deal with the marketing, distribution or regulation of media products. Many companies do a combination of these things. An example of a company that does this is:     The British Broadcasting Corporation     http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

The BBC produces its own media, markets its own products and also self-regulates what it produces. The company doesn’t commercially advertise products on their channels but have ranges of DVDs for sale. The BBC doesn’t have a magazine to represent the company itself but it does market a range of magazines that are linked to programmes they show.

  BSkyB                                                                           http://corporate.sky.com/

Sky is another example of a media institution that deals with the production and self-regulation of media. The company that owns sky is BSkyB and they generate a large portion of their income from advertisement.

Bauer Media

Bauer media is a leading publisher and deals with magazines such as Kerrang, Heat and FHM. It is a large company aimed usually at mass market but also has some more specialized magazines such as ‘your horse’.

My magazine is akin to ‘Kerrang!’ so the choice would be between choosing Bauer for its experience in marketing a magazine similar to my own, or choose a different media institution due to the competition that ‘overdrive’ would have against ‘Kerrang!’

As Bauer is a large company, it has a large reach of audience and can pay to advertise my magazine effectively and for this reason I would use Bauer to publish my product. The experience and power of this institution outweigh competition with another magazine. Also, being a high profit organisation, they can afford to take a magazine on such as ‘overdrive’ and pay for its establishment until it begins to make profit.

Negative points of using this media institution are that in the nature of the company having power, this takes power from you the creator of the magazine. Also, being 1 magazine out of 300 means you are just a small part of the company’s portfolio and not the institutions priority.

Bauer media profile:

·         Bauer media is a worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations.

·         The company stretches back to 1953 with the launch of Angling Times and the acquisition in 1956 of Motor Cycle News, both still iconic brands within Bauer Media.

·         Bauer Media is a sister company of H Bauer Publishing, publisher of the UK's biggest TV listings, Take a Break and Bella.

Brand potential:
As the magazine ‘overdrive’ covers a large array of genres (within rock and metal)
it could be developed into a brand that could be seen on CD’s, DVD’s and potentially serve as a body to hold award ceremonies and tours. Also, with the ‘overdrive’ masthead being quite distinctive, it could be sold as an emblem on t-shirts, rucksacks and wallets etc
The magazine i have based my product on, Kerrang!, remains the market-leading music weekly with a devoted audience of rock fans driving sales of 60,289. This shows that Bauer has enough experience with this type of magazine to successfully publish and distribute my magazine.