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1. MAGAZINE GENRES
MEGAN SHERATON

2. GENRE
• A genre is a category such as literature, music, film or art. It basically means any
kind or type that share similar characteristics and features that the audience
expect to see.
• In terms of a magazine, the genre is the topic that the content is featured on and
focused around. Whereas Regional magazines can range from having music
genres, film genres, entertainment genres, sport genres.
• It is important to choose a genre that will appeal to the audience and also be able
to compete in the magazine industry.

3. SUB-GENRE
Genres can then be broken down into sub-genres which are smaller divisions of the
main subject area/topic. For instance, music is a genre which can be branched out
to the sub-genres of pop, rock, punk or country. This allows the product to have a
much more specific generalisation of styles so that it can have a deeper focus on a
certain topic. You can also have a magazine that covers more than one genre. This
would be useful if you wanted to appeal to a wider audience and therefore get a
greater publicity for your magazine. I think having more than one sub-genre could
be useful when producing a regional magazine as otherwise the audience would be
quite limited due to it not being national and maybe not having as much going on
in the specific area. It also means that you can focus more on making different
aspects regional as there would be more content and variety to report on.

4. REGION
• I have decided to set my regional magazine within the North East of England ad
this is my hometown and therefore I have the most knowledge around this area.
It also means I have a greater opportunity to take original photographs around
the area and find out if there are any magazines that are regional to the North
East. Personally I already know that there are very limited magazines specifically
focused on the North, especially focusing on sports. I therefore feel that a
regional magazine in this area would be beneficial as there are more spaces to fill
regarding regional sports magazines as I couldn’t find one specific to the North
when I was conducting my research of this area.

5. SPORT MAGAZINES
• Sport is a very popular genre of magazine with usually an audience of 15-32 year olds.
Some sport magazines cover a range of sub-genres like football, cricket and overall
competitions however others are more refined to a specific type of sport. Northern
golfer is the only regional magazine that offers the latest information on golf and
tournaments. It is predominately aimed at solely males and due to the very specific
sub-genres: golfers. When looking through it I noticed that it included mainly national
stories and lacked a lot of regional input from regional stars or professionals. I
personally think this is due to the refined target audience which makes it harder to
write locally about. The north east is more known for football or cricket rather than
golf so I wouldn’t limit myself to do a magazine solely on regional golfing, as it would
be hard to adapt and make successful. Yet I do quite like sports myself so I would
quite like to do a regional sports magazine.

6. FASHION MAGAZINE
• Gossip is a fashion and lifestyle magazine based in the north east and is
distributed to over 13,500 ABC homes and businesses. Fashion is a sub-genre of
the lifestyle genre however has a stereotypical audience of women. This is
portrayed by gossip which uses mostly female inspirational images and articles
about beauty, home design, fashion and local events. I like how the magazine
manages to promote regional stores and various charities however I think the
audience is too refined to women for you not to alienate men. I know this from
the links to house innovations, business outfit ideas and wedding articles.
Although some people in the region clearly like this it isn’t something that I am
not particularly interested in and feel that if I were to create a magazine on
fashion I couldn’t make it as successful as if I did a magazine on music or sports.

7. CULTURE AND LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE
• A culture and lifestyle magazine can be greatly adapted to a specific region and
therefore would be a great choice for regional magazine but again this is
something I wouldn’t be at my best ability to write about. The Crack magazine is
an example of a North East culture magazine which is aimed solely at an audience
of 18-31 year olds . It offers a range of sub-genres such a music, clubs, art, film,
dance and food which allows no audience member to be alienated.

8. CONCLUSION
• After conducting my research into different magazine genres and sub-genres in my
region, I have come to the conclusion I will create a sports magazine. I feel this will
allow me to incorporate the most sub-genres and therefore attract the biggest
audience whilst keeping my content regional and relatable. I also feel that there aren’t
enough sports regional magazines in the North East so I think it will attract a wide
audience to buy my magazine. The sub-genres I will most likely include would be
cricket and football as we have a lot of local football teams and cricket teams in the
region as well as national teams. As I have a keen interest in all of these topics I will be
able to portray them to a standard in which I believe will be professional and creative.
I also enjoy reading national sports magazine so I therefore already have an existing
knowledge of what to expect which I will develop with further research.