History of the Press and Bauer Media

1950's - 1960's

-Music Express             - Melody Maker
Content of magazine - mainly charts and singles, gig listings

Changes in society in the 1960's with the arrival of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, drug culture of the 1960's - changed the nature of music and music writing.

1960's

 First time a magazine focussed on one band, Rolling Stones was created b Jann Wenner, a fortnightly publication (released every two weeks) which contained a mixture of current affairs, celeb interviews and coverage of the music industry its appeal lay in the way the journalists addressed the youth audience.

1970's

Early 1970's - first of all: "Glam Rock" - Sweet, Mud, Slade, T Rex
and then "Progressive Rock" - Pink Floyd, Emmerson Lake Palmer.
Music Papers still largely uncritical of groups until the prog rock bands begin to spend too much money on staging, lighting and lasers, etc.

NME - new magazine
it changed its style to meet Punk head on.
New writers were recruited from the magazines own readership, with ads like 'wanted: hip young gun slingers'. Julie Burchill became a top NME reporter overnight.
(however not very experienced and very bias)

Mid 1970's - NME embraces punk - writers begin to move the paper away from simply music writing and start writing about "serious" issues such as politics, philosophy, etc. The music press becomes divided between Musicians papers such as melody makers and political papers such as NME.

1978 - Smash hits launched a new glossy mag catering for a younger audience in a smaller magazine format. Its focus was on "trivia" - favourite colours, food, pop-musisicans' lifestyles, etc.
It included - polls, letters, surveys, fan club information - keeps in touch with readership - what do they want? Lyrics, posters, free gifts on the cover...

1980s

Style in pop music becomes more important than content: makeup, clothes, the video, fashion and hair.
Independant music labels wanted their own voice and began producing fanzines. These fanzines were often typed, photocopied and distributed at concerts or by subscription.
Despite the handmade appearance this encouraged a whole new generation of writers, photographers and cartoonists to contribute.
Magazines became more about fashion, makeup and hairstyles, less about music and more about how people looked. Experimentation with typefaces (fonts), facial expressions.

1990's

Launch of MTV (the first tv market for music videos)
New technologies began to emerge. Music videos began to change many aspects of the ways in which music is consumed.
Every single comes with a video, sometimes more money is spent on the video than the single.

1993 - MOJO was debuted. The rough idea , in the words of founding editor Paul Du Noyer, was for something "that had the sensibilities of a fanzine and the design values of Vogue.
Was initially published by Emap but Bauer media took over in 2008 and bought Emap in 2007.

2000's

Today - is there a limited "music press" because "everything is pop culture"?
Daily newspapers feature pop stars and "celebrities" appear on daytime TV.
People are famous for being famous. Everyone in a band or with some talent assumes that they have a right to be rich and famous.



Conglomerate: A huge media institution/ company that owns numerous companies involved in mass media platforms, such as television, radio, publishing etc.

Conglomerates like Bauer and Hearst Communications are still primarily print publishers with some associated television and radio.

MOJO is published by Bauer Media 

This company owns over 600 magazines, including two other UK magazines - Q and Kerrang!
The company has diversified the MOJO brand , offering mojo4music.com online in order to reduce the risk of only operating in one media form.
The company is itself diversified, with ownership of magazines, websites, radio stations and music television channels, which may help protect it from declining audiences for magazines.



Bauer Media Group is a diversified media conglomerate because it owns a wide range of media platforms ranging from magazines to radios. It owns 'MOJO' magazine and 'Modern gardening, two magazines which cover a spectrum of topics and both differ in genres. This in turn creates a mass audience which can produce a large number sales benefiting the business.

From the 'audience finder' I found that older audiences preferred media volumes were those that involve cars and things regarding the environment. However younger audiences were more into pop radio stations such as 'kiss' and fashion magazines.

Bauer Media is a globalised company because they publish magazines, make radio programmes and design digital formats in 17 countries on four continents. Bauer Media Group has a work force of approximately 11,500 employees in 17 countries. Bauer media has an international turnover of €2.316 billion.

Bauer Media created their own radio station called MOJO radio but in 2008 it ceased broadcasting in order to save Bauer money.

Is the promotion of music today driven more by the Industry or the audience/readership?

I think the promotion of music today is driven by both what the audience want and what the industry need to promote because the magazine will want to promote their own stuff but also they need to put in what the audience wants as thats where their money comes from.