Magazine Industry Overview By Joshua Taylor Ragan
The Major Companies • There are three “Major” companies in the magazine industry. Bauer Media Group, BBC magazines (And BBC overall) and Time Inc (Formerly IPC Media) • Bauer media brands include 4 Music, Absolute Radio, Angling Times, Bike, Bird Watching, Digital Photo, EMPIRE, FHM, Golf World, Kiss, Mojo, Q, Rail and Ride and many many more. As you can see Bauer has a huge monopoly on the radio and magazine industry specifically focusing on music, and hobbies such as automobiles and fishing and more. They own a huge chunk of the market but lack in a bigger name to help spread in but because they are big enough already its not always needed. • BBC magazines Is part of the BBC group. BBC magazine Brands include (Are mostly subscription based) Radio Times, BBC Good Food, BBC History ,BBC Top Gear, BBC Garden World, Lonely Planet Traveller, BBC Focus Subscriptions, Home & Subscription, Knit Today, Match Of The Day, BBC Music, Mountain Biking Today, Paper Craft Inspirations, BBC Wildlife, Pro Cycling, Simple Crochet, Simply Knitting, Urban Cyclist, Who Do You Think You Are? , BBC Easy Cook, History Revealed, BBC Country file, Easy Living Gluten Free as well as many BBC TV associated magazines such as Doctor Who magazine. BBC magazines has a strong monopoly as well on the magazine industry they more excel at the older hobbies and TV related releases as well; there strength is that they can feed of the tycoon of an industry that is the BBC to make them bigger.
The Major Companies Extended • Time Inc. (Formerly IPC Media) Brands owned by Time Inc are Health, Cooking Light, Southern Living, Food and Wine, Essence, Wallpaper,Travel + Leather • There are other producers such as Republic Of Music who sell magazine brands along side there other products, the most successful of these is Clash Magazine
The Size Of The Magazine Industry in 2015
•Retail Copy Sales : 139 Million •New Magazine Launches : 285 •Retail Sales Value : £280m
Trends and The Impact Of Technology In The Magazine Industry • Trends and Technology seem to be very similarly appropriate, the magazine industry has needed to adapt with the times, people no longer want paper copy's of magazines they would much rather access there media online, some magazines have adapted to this change and moved with the times. For example Clash Magazine treats itself as a premium magazine that comes out 10 times a year; there is a high quality closed up physical copy of the magazine but most of it is accessed online alongside there online resources.