Music Magazine Survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RTPR5SP

Favourite Genre Of Music

This part of the survey was dominated by 2 main answers, Rock and Indie. Rock being the number 1 choice of everyone surveyed with 45% and Indie coming in just behind at 30%, accounting for a whopping 3 quarters of everyone surveyed. Nothing else managed to garner more than 3 votes (Pop) and the most popular choice after that was Other (2%)

One of the weaknesses of the survey is the fact that I forgot to include options like Jazz and Classical, while votes for these probably went in the other section some might have ignored that and just voted for their second choice.

Favourite Genre

8%

45%

3%

30%

3%

3%

3%

5%

Pop

Rock

Dance

Indie

Metal

Hip Hop

R'N'B

Other

Money Spent On Music

Money Spent Per Year0%

26%

24%21%

5%

24% £0

£0.01-£50

£50.01-£100

£100.01-£150

£150.01-£200

£200 +

This is one of those cases where I doubt you could have got a more evenly split if you’d tried. No one of the 39 surveyed spent nothing on music and there was only a couple in the £150.01-£200 range. The other 4 options were evenly split: £100.01-£150 had 8 votes, £50.01-£100 and £200+ had 9 votes each while just edging it with 10 votes was £0.01-£50

It’s hard to really get a lot of info on people’s buying habits from this survey. The one thing it does reveal is that how much is spent per year will vary per person and as such you need to find a way to accommodate all of the different money spending segments.

Ways Of Listening To MusicHow Do You Listen To Music?

010203040

Radio

TV

Music

Channels

CD

's/V

inyls

etc

Com

pute

r

Inte

rnet

Listening Options

Nu

mb

ers

of

users

Radio

TV Music Channels

CD's/Vinyls etc

Computer

Internet

This was a multiple choice question for all of the 39 people surveyed. As you can see there are 3 main ways of listening to music that are used by the vast majority of the people surveyed, these are CD’s/Vinyls etc, Computer and The Internet. Radio still managed to attract over half of the people surveyed proving it is still a valuable way to showcase music while the use of TV Music Channels was the only thing to be used by less than 50% of everyone surveyed

What this shows is that the latest modern technology is being used by pretty much everyone to listen to music, while not specifically mentioned one can presume the use of sites like youtube is huge for the people who listen to music via the internet. The one thing that suprised me about the survey is the amount of people that are still using CD’s as a way of listening to music, in recent years there has been a trend towards downloading music both legally and illegally so I expected the number to be lower.

Illegal Downloading

Illegal Downloading

13%

13%

26%

48%

All the time

Quite often

Occasionally

Never

A hot topic within the music industry is the amount of people who are downloading music illegally and as such aren’t paying a penny, a number of well known artists have spoke out and even shown anger at illegal downloading.

As for the people surveyed almost half of you (19) have never downloaded anything illegally and 10 of you have said you’ve only done it occasionally. There were 5 votes each for all the time and quite often.

This to me shows that there are still a large number of people out there who are willing to support the artists they like and hand over a tenner of their money rather than get it for free. With this result and the result in the previous survey of most people using the internet to listen to music it could be a good option to advertise legal downloading sites as it is clearly something that would appeal to most.

Music Magazine ReadershipMusic Magazines

20%

17%

2%

17%2%2%

12%

28%

0% Kerrang

NME

Metal Hammer

Q

Rock Sound

Mixmag

Mojo

Other

Total Guitar

The Music Magazine part of the survey is something you feel would go hand in hand with the Genre question and while it isn’t that clear cut the 2 most popular music magazines are targeted to appeal to fans of the 2 most popular music genres.

Again like the music genre question this question had it’s weaknesses as there was a number of people who voted for the other category (11, the highest amount), if I had the opportunity to do the survey again I would obviously put more research into other music magazines that are out there that people read.

Of the other options listed the most popular magazine by a hair was Kerrang which received 8 votes. I feel this reflects both the answer to the favourite genre question (rock) and the target audience I was looking at for this survey. Tied in 2 nd place with 7 votes each were NME and Q, both of these I feel represent the 2nd choice in the Favourite Genre question (indie) and again like Kerrang it was a result I expected with the target audience I had targeted, although maybe I would have expected NME to be slightly higher than Q. The only other magazine to garner a decent amount of votes was Mojo, it’s a magazine I'm not too familiar with so wasn’t expecting it to receive as many votes as it did (5) with the target audience of this survey

Satisfaction with Current Music Magazines

This part of the survey gave people to chance to rate their satisfaction with the current music magazines on the market, this was done on a 1-10 scale.

There was a mixed response to this but the most common answer was 3 which received 9 votes, a full list of the totals is as follows.

1: 1 vote - 2: 2 votes - 3: 9 votes - 4: 3 votes - 5: 8 votes6: 4 votes - 7: 3 votes - 8: 4 votes – 9: 1 vote – 10: 1 vote

The first thing I notice about this is the lack of responses for 9 and 10, just 2 people thinking the music magazine options at the moment are of a exceptional standard. The second thing I notice is the fact that 3 is the most popular option, this shows that don’t detest the magazine but think it is of a poor standard.

Favourite Bands + Gigs been to

The 3 favourite bands section threw up plenty of different responses with not 1 band/artist getting more than votes despite a survey response of 39 people.

Ones with 2 votes: Kasabian, Blur, REM, Eels, Stereophonics, Muse, Arctic Monkeys and Paramore

Ones with 3 votes: The Killers and The Smiths

Only one with 4 votes: Oasis

Despite Rock winning the favourite genre poll the Indie genre is much more represented here, this could suggest that fans of the Indie genre are more consistent in naming their favourite artists.

The gigs been to section

Ones with 2 votes: Morrissey, Glastonbudget, Green Day, Offset, Editors, Kasabian and Blur

Ones with 3 votes: Oasis, Reading and Download

Ones with 5 votes: Glastonbury

Again this list has a very indie feel to it, however 2 of the festivals listed in the 3 section (Reading and Download) would be classified as Rock festivals.

Both show what we’ve learnt already, pretty much everyone surveyed is in to either Rock or Indie music.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Music Magazines

One of the main issues people have with music magazines at the moment are the writers, here are some selected quotes

‘A lack of non-patronising journalism, with some wit and intelligence’

‘Most of the writers are complete idiots’

‘They can also not be independent enough – see NME’s corporate whoring , which tends to undermine one’s faith in journalistic impartiality – are bands just being trumped because they are perceived by men in suits to be the next big thing?’

‘Too fixed in opinions, too many agendas

There were some positive responses though

‘Good choice in the genre I like’

‘Plenty of choice between magazines, differeing opinions between each publication , huge variety in focusing on genres.’

‘Variety; there's a lot of good fanzines. In terms of more established magazines Rolling Stone still produce brilliant features. Plan B, Bearded offer up enough to satisfy my indie leanings. ‘

What do you look for when purchasing a music magazine?

There was one main thing that kept popping up for this question. Quotes along the lines of ‘Bands I like on the front cover’ was mentioned a whopping 12 times.

This pretty much shows the mentality of most music magazine buyers, there are a large number who won’t be loyal to a certain magazine brand but loyal to their band and will only buy the magazine if the band makes an appearance in it.

Surprisingly the phrase and variations of ‘Free Stuff’ was only mentioned once. I feel this is a rarity and if I spoke to the survey takers after this again after I reckon the answer would be different.

Like most of the people surveyed I buy magazines based on the front cover and as such I would make a purchase of this Kerrang.

ConclusionThe one main thing to come out of this survey is how popular Rock/Indie music is within my target audience, this means it is common sense to design my magazine to suit that genre of music.

Another thing to come out of this survey is how important the bands on the front cover is in deciding whether the reader decides to buy the magazine. Because of this in my Magazine I will try and feature a band/artist that can appeal to the majority of my target audience

Also with the majority of people not happy with the current music magazine options on the market I will try and maybe feature something different to appeal to the readers. It’s also noted that a few people aren’t happy with the writers role in a music magazine so again I will be trying all I can to avoid this.

One last thing of note is that the majority of people surveyed have never downloaded anything illegally, this means it could be a good idea to advertise potential legal options that are available.