Complete Analysis of a Music Magazine - Kerrang!

Kerrang! was founded in 1981 and initially was a one-time addition to the sounds magazine. Popular artists were featured on the front cover: AD DC and Angus Young. The magazine made a gradual move to a weekly magazine in 1987, originating as a monthly release to every fortnight. The style of the rock genre changes as new trends come about, it is often criticised for this. This shows that their target audience was aimed at the younger generations as they always picked up on the latest trends, leaving the others behind or including them less. However, there are many things still to appeal to a larger audience on their website. Kerrang! was also later published in Australia, Spain and Germany. The Australian version was published monthly, however, due to the competition with free local music publications. The colour scheme of the magazine varies often but sticks to bold block colours such as red, white and yellow. It is very image based and has an artist or artists as the main image with smaller photos also included on the cover. Besides the masthead there is very little format that stays the same from each addition.

www.kerrang.com, launched in 2001, is the website for their magazine. It contains music features, videos, the latest headlines, music facts, a link to the latest version with an option to subscribe at a discounted price (40% off), advertisements, a radio station, links to social media pages, a search bar to find out about older content, a TV channel and purchasable merchandise from the online shop. Kerrang! runs and sponsors the relentless awards ceremony each year for different types of media. This includes film, music and TV which brings a much greater audience to the Kerrang! fan base. This, in turn, widens the target audience meaning they will have to vary their content more. It has other sponsors for that such as Relentless, Zombie Evacuation Race, Strongbow, Jack Daniel’s and Sea Shepherd. Kerrang! Also gives recognition to tours that a sponsored by Relentless Energy Drink very frequently. Tours by bands such as Bowling For Soup, Asking Alexandra and Fearless Vampire Killers are featured on their website.