NME Case Study

NME is a magazine mainly focuses on publishing rock and alternative music articles. It is targeted at the ages of 18 – 45, 80% male, 20% female and specifically active music enthusiasts. It costs £2.40 and is sold at most newsagents and supermarkets, it is edited by Krissi Mursion. NME is published by IPC and has been published weekly since 1952 but only became a magazine in 1988.

The magazine is targeted at the serious music listener, they use a series of layout schemes to grab the eye of the reader. They have a lot of experience and have achieved a lot of accomplishments such as creating the first UK singles chart and hosting The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks.

An online version of NME is available and it is the world’s biggest standalone music site, with over 7 million users per month. It tends to adapt to accommodate new sounds on the rock/metal scene. This has helped increase sales in dark times. However, it has received criticism for this.

NME consists of approximately 73 A4 pages, produced on glossy, full colour paper. It follows a standard magazine layout, combining full colour images with bite-size snippets of text on some pages and full colour articles that combine image and text on others.

Their content is entirely devoted to music with articles on bands, music, reviews, gig information and gig guides. The magazine offers free posters, reflecting the large youth readership.

NME features a lot of iconography associated with indie/rock and the scene that surrounds it, e.g. tattoos, amps, dark makeup-up and electronic guitars. The magazine is visual with some heavy image and some text heavy. Red and black features mostly in the magazine.

Their mode of address is casual featuring informal words and phrases that the reader might use. The tone of expression used by a young fan of indie/rock is established. There’s a friendly and down-to-earth atmosphere suggesting a good friend to friend relationship between reader and magazine.