Audience Research Survey Results

I used speedsurvey to gather information on you guys, which helped greatly. Unfortunately, it only runs up until 25 respondents, then wants you to pay to see the results. However, i was lucky enough to view the results just before it went over and can remember a substantial amount. The answers were as close to as follows:

Are you male or female?

24 Respondents MALE

1 Respondent FEMALE

--- This shows me my target audience will largely be male and could shape the content for them.

What age range are you in?

About 40% of people were in the 21-30 age rage

About 50% were in the 15-20 age range

The other 10% was spread to the ages above 30.

--- This shows me that i am mostly aiming for a fairly young, teenagers and those in their twenties audience, so will have to include modern content and also enables me to refine my content to specifically cater for this age range.

If any, which music magazines do you currently read? (if none, put none)
and what do you find good or bad about your current choice of magazine?

The majority of the respondents did not currently read a music magazine, but those that did liked their magazine because of the genre of music it covered. None read Kerrang! however, showing that perhaps the popularity for a weekly rock-based magazine is fading. The magazines that were read were NME and Q because they liked the bands they covered. The things they did not like was incorporation of things too mainstream into the mags.

---The lack of people actually reading a magazine from the respondents shows there is something missing from the current market, which of course i am aiming to fill with my indie-based magazine. The complaints about mainstream content should not be a problem with my magazine, as most of the bands i would feature would be new, underground and indie bands. The NME and Q genres are not a far cry from my genre, so it bodes well for me that they like their genres.

What would you look for in a music magazine in terms of features/articles? AND What would you AVOID in a music magazine?

Preferred features:

• Interviews
• Album Reviews
• Gig coverage
• Simple, clean page designs
• Free gifts (e.g. CDs)
• Roundups/collections of records you should buy

Disliked features:

• Adverts
• Bad page layouts/over complex
• Text that is too small to read properly
• Garish colours
• Overly critical/trashy reviews

---My response to this is fairly simple, try and include the liked features and avoid doing anything in the disliked section. I plan to make page layouts as intuitive and clean as possible with easy to read text and stick to my intended blue themed design (not garish). I can also try to include the liked features, which shouldn't be too difficult.

What is your favourite genre of music?

There was almost one vote for every genre of music, but the main focus was on trance and indie (with 4 votes each).

---As trance will not be appearing in my genre of magazine, the preference for indie is a good indication that i am targeting the right market.

Would you prefer a more expensive monthly magazine, or a cheaper weekly mag?

The spread here was fairly even, with a slight preference for monthly.

---This was interesting to have as a result and made me think about going away from the normal two trends of weekly or monthly and go straight down the middle at a fortnightly magazine (allowing more time to save for the magazine, and alleviating pressure to buy it weekly) so that it is a good all rounder.

What sort of price range would you be expecting to pay for a WEEKLY magazine?

Most people here voted for the £2.00-£2.50 bracket, with a few in the bracket below in £1.50-£1.99.

How much you expect to pay for a MONTHLY magazine?

Most people here voted for the £2.99-£3.49 mark, with a couple going for the above bracket £3.50-£4.00

---As the above prices are fairly close together, i think my earlier idea of a fortnightly magazine is a wise one. I could set the price inbetween these two brackets at £2.75 and make it fornightly, so that it isnt as expensive as a monthly, is only slightly more expensive than a weekly one yet would potentially have double the content. 

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Overall, i think my audience research survey helped me to make many decisions and had enabled me to focus my magazine's content and can now complete a treatment  sheet in the near future.