Research and Planning: Distribution

The next part in my research was to look at distribution networks; both major and independent.

Major distribution strategies aim to saturate the market, both home and abroad, by promoting their magazine in major retail stores such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s and HMV. As their product is massed produced they are able to sell their magazine at a lower price, invest in new artists for their covers and provide freebies and competitions which will attract a larger audience to their magazine therefore selling more magazines and making more money, something that major distribution companies strive for. The four main distributors for the magazine industry are Marketforce, Comag, Frontline and Seymour.

To gain more information about major distribution companies and their ways of distribution I researched Frontline.

Frontline was formed in June 1986 by the magazine publisher Emap (now Bauer Media) in order to handle the demands of their expanding circulation department.
Frontline has four main partners; Seymour, Haymarket, BBC Enterprises and H Bauer publishing. This increases market share and dominates the industry, providing many different sources of revenue and more profits for the company. Frontline sells and distributes over 160 magazine titles, including 54 of the top 200 best selling titles in the UK and by selling nearly 8 million copies every week, through over 55,000 shops ranging from the smallest corner store to the biggest hypermarket, makes them the biggest magazine distributor in the UK.

Frontline provide comprehensive Supply Chain support in the U.K. and Ireland extending from the new product launches and new issues to liaison with Printers and the management of Finishing, Transportation, Subscriptions, Export, Copy Management, Wholesalers, Statistical Analysis, and Supply Chain Development including retail service improvement.




Frontline cater for all genres, from music to self help and for many different audiences. Popular, well known magazines that they distribute are; Heat, Bella, Kerrang! and Q.



Independent distribution companies have very different market and promoting their magazines than the major companies like Frontline. Whereas the major companies focus on profit, independent companies concentrate on the audience and the individuality of the magazine. They are small, maybe even home run and concentrate on distributing their magazines to urban, underground shops or online. In fact vice have their own television channel called VBS.tv - http://www.vbs.tv/

Whilst this limits the audience and the public knowledge of the magazine, by selling the magazine to a limited audience it weeds out the people who aren't really fans of the genre of type of magazine and allows die hard fans to keep up to date. With the popularity of the Internet growing every year, the independent companies have used this to their advantage. Whereas as before breaking into an abroad market may have been almost impossible, yet with the help of the Internet fans from all over the world can access the magazine. An example of independent magazine distribution is Vice. Vice sells their magazines mainly online and through some select independent record stores such as Tempest and Studio 4 in Birmingham. As they don't worry about profit margins or making money they are not afraid to do something different even if it may offend some people. Their marketing program is much the same as the major companies but on a much smaller scale. The majority of Vice readers are male, aged between 21-30 and are generally big spenders yet are loyal and trustworthy customers who like to be involved with the bands and the making of the magazine as well as finding out about the band first rather than the music.

Example of Vice magazine;



My magazine is going to be based on the rock/indie genre, with an audience profile of C2/D on the Jicnars scale and a psychografic profile of hedonists, radicals and post modernists. I would like my magazine to appeal to a more mainstream audience, as from previous research I have discovered that there is a gap in the market for a magazine that aims to make rock/indie music more cool and appeal to a wider audience. Therefore for my magazine I would want it to be sold in more mainstream shops such as Tesco and HMV rather than select specialist stores as it provides a bigger shop window for my magazine to be marketed from. To do this I would want my magazine to be distributed by a large major distribution company such as Frontline.