REGIONAL AND NATIONAL MAGAZINES

A comparison between the two types of magazine:

NATIONAL MAGAZINE-As national magazines are well known they must decide on a genre and maintain this throughout all of their issues. This is because the certain magazine is well known because of their genre, however their content can be varied. National magazines tend to vary the content within their magazines by including interviews and exclusive content because it attracts a larger amount of people. Despite national magazines having a specific target audience, they will always be looking to draw more people in to buying their magazine. In order to attract a nation towards their magazine they will have to have relatable or interesting content. For example on the ‘GLORIA’ magazine (seen to the left) a sell line is ‘what your drink says about you’. By doing this the magazine creates synthetic personalization with the reader through the use of the pronoun ’you’ making them feel directly contacted. In addition to this the statement can apply to anyone, therefore encouraging purchases and widening the audience of the magazine.

REGIONAL MAGAZINE-Whilst having similar qualities to a national magazine, regional magazines must focus on keeping their content as regional as possible. This is because the main selling point for this type of magazine is that is is catered towards a specific target audience. Regional content attracts the target audience due to it being informative and at the same time it is leisurely similar to a national magazine. Once the reader has read an issue of a regional magazine they are able to know things about the community they live in such as events, small businesses and general information. A regional magazine can risk loosing their readers if they veer away from including content related to the region.

KEY DIFFERENCES- ◦ National magazines tend to be aimed at a younger target audience due to the modern genres

that are usually seen within these styles of magazines such as fashion, lifestyle and music. However regional magazines tend to feature themes such as nature and weddings, these magazines don’t tend to attract a wide audience.

◦ Nation magazines have a wider target audience meaning that they can include a larger variation of contents whereas in a regional magazine content is limited due to it having to link to a certain reason. Regional magazines have to stick to that theme as that is the primary reason that the audience will purchase the magazine.

◦ Overall regional magazines tend to have a more simple and minimalistic front cover whereas national magazines feature multiple sell lines. This is because national magazines are always trying to attract more customers however, a regional magazine only has a limited target audience so therefore don’t have to push their magazine as hard.

◦ Typically, regional magazines tend to have a higher price than a national magazine, this can link back to the fact that there is less people purchasing the magazine so the production company will have to raise the prices in order to create the magazine and make a profit.