Research Task Two: Independent Music Magazines.

 An independent print magazine can be identified through being published without the support financially of large corporations or institutions. One feature of independently published magazines, that will be rare in mainstream titles is that independent magazine editorials will be free to experiment; allowing creativity. Though importantly, independent magazines will not be as financially stable as they will be without the media empires support that mainstream titles receive. This brings limitations such as: limited distribution as with a far smaller team may not be able to get their work out to as many people and secondly an independent magazine will be in much more risk of going out of business than one of the big titles. Coming from these independent publishers having a smaller circulation and less money to be able to use. 

Knowing that an independent print magazine is less financially stable compared to its bigger competitors, it should also be noted that an independent print magazine publisher will typically only have a single title compared to the large producers who can afford to keep expanding, having hundreds of titles under their banner. 

The top three biggest magazine publishers in the UK as of 2020 are Bauer Media, Immediate Media Company and Future Publishing Ltd. Together these publishers have a 37% share of their market. With Bauer Media having 80 titles available in the UK, with Immediate Media Company also having around 80 titles of its own and lastly Future Publishing Ltd has at least 50 titles under its umbrella. 

An independent magazine with its freedom is able to focus in on a niche which will only market to a select few people, but in doing so can help to make themselves different to the large mainstream titles, as they will be after the largest possible audience whereas, an independent magazine can build a strong readership in the area it wishes to focus on. 

One genre where many independent magazines focus on is music thanks to the many types of music there are to focus on. Two examples of print magazines which focus on music are The Wire and RnR. 

The wire describes itself as "an independent print and online music magazine covering a wide range of global alternative, underground and experimental musics." Founded in 1982 and at first focused on jazz as their primary music choice to talk about, they have now expanded to talking about a diverse array of music choices, and a sign of them being an independent magazine comes from them having a 7,000 to 20,000 circulation per month and for context the biggest music magazine, also owned by Bauer Media, is Mojo which has an average of 69,284 copies sold per issue. 

RnR are a younger independent magazine founded in 1988 to cover a broad range of music offerings. Though their monthly sales are not a clear number as with Mojo or The Wire, it is safe to say that it is one of the highest selling music magazines in the UK, impressive thanks to it being an independent publisher. Something which differentiates RnR from its competitors is that it offers a free CD with every issue.