Prezi

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This link above shows my prezi which shows research into the four major firms in the magazine industry, these firms are Bauer, IPC Media, Conde Nast and Hearst. In this research task we were finding out all the primary information behind these companies such as what magazines they produce, how successful these magazines are and any other relevant information to the study of the magazine institution. My role in this prezi was finding out information about IPC Media.

The main information I found out about IPC Media is that they are a UK based company that are split into five sections which are IPC advertising, IPC connect, IPC inspire, Marketforce, and IPC Southbank. This original information shows that they are a big enough company to split into different sections so that each part of the company has a focus. IPC Media owns magazines such as Nuts, NME, Marie Claire, Look and Now. These are some of the big generic magazines in the UK showing that this company has some major industry power. As well as these well known magazines it also owns 60 iconic brands showing that the power this company has in the UK is quite big. Although they have this major power in 2011 they shed 14.2% of their circulation year on year because of the declined sales of music magazines NME and Uncut. This shows that although they have big power in the industry they are also starting to lose this power through generic style of their magazines. As I looked at in my previous post individual magazines from individual publishers are becoming more popular so company’s like IPC Media are slowly going to start losing their big revenue unless they change to fit the new magazine institution.

As well as having declined sales on certain magazines within IPC Media there is also surrounding controversy on some of their magazines. Such as when Morrissey won a pre-trial hearing against Conor McNicholas (former editor of NME) and IPC Media which he have his day in court later this year to ‘clear his name’ against racism accusations. This is something that may stir away potential readers if they don’t agree with a controversy surrounding a magazine within this company as this will assist the declining sales. This also gives the magazines and the company’s a bad name because they don’t trust the information that they are selling. Although there is this surrounding them they do still get over 20 million users every month on their website showing that although they have declined sales they are still popular with quite a lot of people.

From the information displayed in this blog we can clearly see that these major firms do still have power as the magazines they own are still popular. Although this institution is constantly changing so unless the rise of individual magazines stops then these firms are still in danger of losing their audience. But as long as they keep the major magazines that they own fresh and interesting for their readers then their position at the top may be safe.