Magazine Audience Research: Questionnaire

In order to create a successful music magazine, you have to grasp an idea of who you’re appealing to and what they expect to find in a satisfactory magazine. I have constructed a questionnaire that in hope will give me an insight into what is looked for in a magazine, and what is and isn’t enjoyed in reading one.

The questions that I asked were as follows:

1. How often do you purchase a music magazine?

• On a weekly basis
• On a fortnightly basis
• On a monthly basis
• Other (please specify): ____________

1. What music magazines do you purchase most frequently?

• NME
• Kerrang!
• Q
• Mojo
• The Fly
• Clash
• Classic FM
• BBC Music (classical)
• Other (please specify): ____________

1. What feature(s) of a music magazine are you most interested in? (mark multiple if necessary)

• Interviews
• Reviews
• Exclusive News
• Gig information/advertising
• Posters
• Photography
• Other (please specify): ____________

1. How much are you usually happy to spend on a music magazine?

• No cost (free)
• £0.01-0.99
• £1-1.99
• £2-2.99
• £3-3.99
• £4+

1. What genre of music are you mainly interested in?

• Anything in the charts
• Pop
• Rock
• Metal
• Hip-hop/rap
• R&B
• Classical
• Jazz/blues
• World music
• Other (please specify): ____________

1. If any, which radio station do you choose to listen to?

• Heart FM
• Capital FM
• BBC Radio 1
• BBC Radio 2
• Magic
• Kiss 100
• Absolute
• Kerrang! Radio
• NME Radio
• Other (please specify): ____________

1. In which way do you access your music files?

• Paid music downloads (please specify source): ____________
• Illegally downloaded MP3s
• CD purchase
• Live streaming
• Other (please specify): ____________

1. What urges you the most to buy a music magazine?

• An appealing front cover
• TV advertisements
• Web advertisements
• Posters
• Other (please specify): ____________

Some of my included questions required some background research – question one required some knowledge of the dates and frequencies of which magazines are published. The given answers of ‘weekly’, ‘fortnightly’ and ‘monthly’ were the most apparent issue patterns for the majority of popular magazines, but I have given the ‘other’ option for the minority of different publishing patterns. Research was also required for other questions, for example, question three required research into the conventions of a typical magazine, but again giving the ‘other’ option for any dissimilar responses. Hopefully this questionnaire will give me an insight to what I must include in an ideal magazine.

Magazine Questionnaire Results

I conducted my questionnaire across twenty people and have tallied up the results into the most practical charts. The charts appear as follows:

Pie Chart Representation of Questionnaire Results

Answers from question one convey that forty-five percent of questioned people buy their magazines monthly, with only a quarter having weekly patterns, and below twenty percent buying a magazine fortnightly and the same percentile having some other purchase pattern or having never purchased a magazine. This will help me identify how to advertise my magazines publishing frequency.

Chart displaying percentiles of popular magazines from questionnaire results

 The results from question two conveys that ‘Kerrang!’ magazine is the most popular music magazine amongst 16-21 year olds (the age range of whom I asked), and it shows the classical, less modernly apparent music magazines are not so popular, with BBC Music only having one reader. Q, NME and Kerrang! dominated this data with ‘The Fly’ just behind, this may be perhaps it is a free magazine. The results of this question inform me of which magazines to use as inspiration when creating my own music magazine.

Results from question 4 - price ranges

 The chart above indicates that the £3.00-£3.99 price range is the most frequently paid amount for music magazines amongst the twenty people that were asked. This implies that I will have to research magazines in this price range to see what content is held and what makes them worth their money.

Pie Chart Conveying Why Consumers Buy Magazines

 

The chart above portrays the proportions of reasons why consumers purchase music magazines. Appealing front covers appeared the most as the response, with appealing content only being ten per cent behind. Conveyed here are the ways in which I should advertise or appeal to my audiences, and appealing front covers and contents were the highest responses.