2013 Post 39- Film Magazine Demographic/Psychographic

My group and I have chosen to write a double-page spread review of our short film. In order to do this, first we need to explore existing film magazines, looking into their demographic and psychographic so that we know what kind of magazine would attract our target audience.
I researched Empire magazine; known as the 'UK's premier movie destination' they provide an 'insight into cinema, both blockbuster and classic' online and in-print. It is a mainstream film magazine and a fairly popular one with young males in the ABC1 social classes. It's readership figures can be found here.

66% are of ABC1 class, 71.8% are Male and 85.3% are aged 15-34.
I also compared Empire to another Film magazine called Total Film, they both share a very similar demographic and feature mainstream blockbuster reviews as well. Their readership figures were found here.

60.9% are of ABC1 higher middle classes, 75.6% are Male and 86.6% are aged 15-34.

I looked at what our target audience thought of these two well-known film magazines, our target audience demographic four our short film would encompass both genders, aged 12-30 who would fall under the E social class of unemployed and in education. From this forum, they appeared to prefer Empire magazine because they had:

• Interesting and varied articles on obscure films as well
• More film reviews to read
• Better links to film industry
• Total film used too much space for pictures than articles
• Overall better written

Our film incudes themes of isolation relevant to people of our target 12-30 age bracket, our psychographic would thus include people that are unsure of where to go in the world, with strong friendships or difficult relationships like our character in our film struggles with problems that no one understands. Due to their young age, most of our target audience would be kept up-to-date with social networking sites and sharing online where they could read online film magazines such as Sight & Sound.

A review page

This is a more niche orientated monthly film magazine, which may be a more suitable magazine type for the double-page spread review of our independent short film. They were founded in 1932 and have a long history with an American counterpart, they are also known as having the most respected of the countless polls of great films. Their audience however, has been described as 'snobbish', appealing to mostly older males who are seriously invested and interested in films. This magazine includes art house releases with a full cast and credit crew list for each reviewed film, and its psychographic is dedicated, affluent and cultured. Since the magazine is only available digitally and is connected to several social networking sites, it does appeal to a younger audience.

 

 

As well as this I discovered Little White Lies, a bi-monthly, independent film magazine that features 'cutting-edge writing, illustration and photography to get under the skin of cinema'. Their magazine looks more into the artistic side of films, reviewing a very wide range of films from blockbusters to art house and foreign productions. Unlike Empire and Total film, they 'don’t care about celebrity, Oscars and popcorn', and their audience appears to be quite young as the covers are often wacky with 3D designs, and their website is packed with sharing options on social networking sites and apps on mobile devices.

Cover page

The editor of the magazine began Little White Lies as a response to the boring film magazine market, where there were only huge amounts of advertising and sucking up to film distributors. This magazine is designed to appeal to film lovers which can include both genders, although the exploration of music, art, politics and pop culture may reach an ABC1 class audience, and the explosions of colour on the covers directly targets a younger audience similar to that of our short film.