Evaluation: Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

All media products should have an audience in mind upon creation. Doing this will have a significant impact on all the decisions that are made about the content and design of the product. Media products use demographics and VALs to determine who their audience is and to understand as much as they can about them. (Link to demographics definition: http://image.slidesharecdn.com/demographicsandpsychographics-130205082846-phpapp02/95/demographics-and-psychographics-2-638.jpg?cb=1360052961)

As a part of the planning process for my magazine I created a readership profile similar to the NME profile. I did this in order to understand more about my target audience.


The core audience for my magazine is mainly male (80% male, 20% female) aged 16 - 45 years old. The social grade of my audience would be ABC1, and their most likely VALs group would be makers (Link to VALs definitions: http://mediastudies4school.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/vals-with-defintitons.html). The sub-culture of heavy metal fans (metalheads) are very likely to be within the audience do to the nature of the content. Other media texts they may already use could include: Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Terrorizer.

I have selected this group as my audience because the primary genre of music that my magazine focuses on is metal. This genre of music most often attracts a male audience, and was once more associated with older males but has begun to make a larger influence on young people. Despite this, females who partake in metal music may also be interested in buying the magazine. They will need to have the funds to purchase the magazine, thus placing them in the ABC1 social grade. They are likely to be makers because of the culture associated with metal music and the messages this genre sends out.