Interview with Miss Tomlinson about how the Internet is affecting the music magazine industry.
The video is blank so it is just audio.
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Interviewee 1 doesn’t read music magazines regularly, but in the past she has read the likes of Q magazine, NME, Kerrang! and XXL. She thinks the best thing about a print magazine is the portability of it, and the fact she is able to keep it and share it with friends. Unfortunately, as a print magazine, it is a music magazine that you can’t actually hear music from. Some magazines give out free CDs at times, but it would be easier for her if she could just ‘click’ on the bands and hear the music, like you could do online.
As for online magazines, she has read some of Kerrang! magazine online, though mainly as research for lessons. She has also read some of the Source magazine and the Guardian Music Monthly. She find it strange that she doesn’t read these as much as she reads print magazines, especially because they are free, unlike print magazines.
She would expect to see articles about bands, reviews of videos and albums, gossip about musicians and live gig reviews in print music magazines, as well as adverts to help fund it. Whereas in an online magazines she would expect a bit more; still including the same articles, just more interactivity. She would like to see live videos that can be watched directly from the magazines, music you could listen to directly also. The content should be larger scale, meaning older articles as well as newer articles, and the users should be able to add their own comments and responses.
The interviewee lists the best things about online magazines as the fact they’re free, they have videos and music to watch and listen to, which is important when they are talking about new albums and music. Some people might like the fact that they can buy things online. She doesn’t like the lack of portability, as she wouldn’t want to sit in her computer room and read an online magazine. Some online magazines have applications on Smartphones, but she doesn’t own a Smartphone and she doesn’t think she would like to read it on such a small screen even if she did.
The internet was not around when she started reading them, which may suggest why she is reluctant to switch to the online versions of magazines.
The internet is going to have to start to charge, she says. Online newspapers are already starting to experiment with charging to see if people will pay for content, as it’s the only way they can exist. This is because if they don’t charge, everyone will log in and no one will buy the magazine, losing money. The interviewee thinks that the online versions of magazines should be cheap, charging maybe £1 or £1.50 for exclusive content.
The way she reads online isn’t much of a leisure activity as she just wants to find out what she wants to find out and move on, as she’d have to read in the computer room. She finds it more relaxing to browse through a print magazine as its more leisurely and she can read it while travelling if she wants to, so she thinks that she retains more information from a print music magazine.
To keep up with the digital age, the interviewee believes that print magazine companies must have a really strong online presence as well as their magazine. They should cross publicise both of these by making sure that the magazine refers a lot to the website, and vice versa.
Online is the way that everything is going, and people have an expectation of it being cheap.She thinks that in the future, online magazines will be most successful, as it tends to be younger people interested in music and they have more of an online presence nowadays.
