AOB 1 - (Music Press) History

In 1731 the magazines were a lot different to those of today this is for 2 reasons, one reason is that didnt have the technology to make the same sort of pieces as we do today and the second one is the content inside the magazine. The magazines at this time were gentlemen's magazines including lots of text and also drawings as there was no cameras to take photos on. In these days the content was things like housework and how to get a husband. In 1897 the magazine VOGUE was released and still also featured things like work to be done within the house. 1900 Good housekeeping was released and ran an article called “How To Keep Your Husband Happy” again still keeping with the same sort of content in the magazines. 1955 saw the +introduction of photos of celebrities on the front covers of magazines, this was because they now had the technology to do this so they did. he 60’s saw the introduction of niche magazines for men including magazines for Cars, Football and Fishing. This was the beginning of a new era for the magazine cultures. 1986 was a BIG year in the magazine legacy as women started to be shown on magazine cover as this promoted sales of the magazines out to men. The women on the covers of these magazines were all from the same stereotype and that was they were White, Young, Slim and perfect skin and teeth. This was done for a good reason and that was this type of women is more attractive and appealing than any other person. In 1996 VOGUE decided to break this mold and had the first black model on one of their magazine covers, this model was Naomi Campbell. This changed cause massive uproar even though smaller niche magazines had been using black models on their covers for a long time. 2012 Not much has changed about the models on the front covers of magazine as in the fact the women are still slim and perfect but the colour of the skin and also the age is not so much of a problem these days, even though there is definitely a lot more young models than older ones.

The NME (New Musical Express)

The NME is a music magazine that has been published weekly since march 1952. It started as a newspaper but during the 80s its format changed toward a magazine that we know today.

The paper's first issue was published on 7 March 1952 after the “Accordion Times and Musical Express” (from October 4, 1946) was bought by London music promoter Maurice Kinn, for the sum of £1,000, just 15 minutes before it was due to be officially closed. It was relaunched as the New Musical Express. It was initially published in a non-glossy tabloid format on standard newsprint. During the 60's the paper showed the new british groups that were starting to break into the music industry at this time . The Beatles and The Rolling Stones frequently featured on the front cover of the NME at this time. During this time some bits of pop music were being dubbed "Rock" this made the paper engage a strong rivalry with its fellow weekly music paper the Melody Maker. The sales of the NME at this time were still reaching as many as 200,000 copies a week, this makes it one of the UK's biggest sellers of all time.

In the 1970's NME lost ground to its biggest rival the Melody Maker because the coverage had failed to keep pace with the development of rock music so was deemed out of date. In 72 the NME found itself on the brink of closure by its owners the IPC. This was said by Nick Kent  (he soon plays a prominent part in keeping the NME alive) ;

"After sales had plummeted to 60,000 and a review of guitar instrumentalist Duane Eddy had been printed which began with the immortal words 'On this, his 35th album, we find Duane in as good as voice as ever,' the NME had been told to rethink its policies or die on the vine."A new editor was appointed by the IPC and he was given a very short period of

time to turn the NME around or it was to face closure. This resulted in the rapid change of the coverage of the NME from an uncritical showbiz related paper to something that was smarter, hipper, more cynical and also funnier than any other music publication had previously been. This was achieved by the new editor Alan Smith by him and his assistant Nick Logan raiding the underground press for the best writers like Charles Shaar Murray and Nick Kent. When Smith handed over the top job to Logan in mid 1973 the paper was selling nearly 300,000 copies a week way out selling all its rivals. In 76 britain saw the arrival of Punk Rock, some people believed that this was a stagnant music scene but not the NME. The NME gave the Sex Pistols their first music press coverage in a live review or their performance at the marquee in february of the same year. The NME felt that they needed some younger writers to keep up with this ever changing music scene so they employed "Two Hip Young Gunslingers" in the form of Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill. These two became rapidly shot to the top of the punkscene and created a new scope for the NME. In 1978 Nick Logan moved on so his deputy Neil Spencer was to step into his shoes. One his first tasks was to redesign to paper, this is when the NME logo was born that you would recognize today even though it has been tweaked a little. This logo made its first appearance toward the end of 78. During the papers punk era it became more openly political, and would sometime include youth related pieces rather that musical. The election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 saw the paper take a very socialist stance for much of the following 10 years.

In the 1980's during Thatchers era the NME ran espousing socialism and also in the the week of the 1987 elections they even interviewed the leader of the Labour Party and he appeared on the front cover of NME. However sales were dropping and by the mid 80's the NME had hit a rough patch as was in danger of closing once again. During this patch they were split between the writers who wanted to write about the new genre Hip Hop and those who wanted to stick to writing about Rock Music. Sales seemed to be lower when a Hip Hop artist appeared on the Cover and this led the NME into a lack of direction and this became apparent to the audience. This called for another new editor this time in Alan Lewis who had to mirror Smiths revival 15 years previously.


The start of the 90's saw the NME in the thick of the Madchester scene and covering the new british indie bands such as the Shoe-gazers. In 1992 the NME had a very public dispute with a former hero Morrissey due to allegations he had used racist lyrics and imagery. this all started after a concert in Finsbury park where Morissey was seen to drape himself in a union flag. The articles that the NME ran in the next edition made Morrisey not talk to the NME for over 10 Years. 1994 saw the death of Nirvana's front man Kurt Cobain, this story affected his fans and also the readers of the NME because grunge was about to be replaced by Brit pop. By the end of the 90's the NME was starting to take a new approach as the madchester scene was dying they started reporting on american bands. This style of music that was coming from America was called grunge. The most popular grunge bands were by far Nirvana and Pearl Jam. The paper took to grunge very slowly and still reported on british bands as well even thought the paper and the music scene in general was dominated by the americans.
As of 21 of march 1998 the NME wasn't printed on news print it was a magazine.

In 2000 the melody maker the NME's biggest rival closed and then merged with the NME as a previous writer for the melody maker ben knowles became editor. It was thought that the NME would also close because the music magazine market was shrinking. This called for the NME to broden its coverage on the music culture so also started to report on hip hop acts like Jay-z and Missy Elliott, and R&B groups such as destiny's child. This didn't go down to well with the NME's readers so were soon dropped again. 2008 saw the NME have a redesign, aimed at an older readership with a less pop like, more authoritative tone. The first issue with this redesign included a free 7" vinyl coldplay single. The circulation of the NME in the later half of 2011 was 23,924, which is 66% decrease on a 2003 figure of 72,442.

That is a brief history of the NME from the 1970's to present and how it has changed over time.

AOB 2 - (Music Press) Structure

Flat Plan Of A NME Magizine

In the beginning of the magazine it has the News and Adverts, this is because when you open the magazine this will keep you interested in what is going on in the NME World. The adverts go throughout the magazine but get smaller and smaller towards the end. The feature article is after the news this is because they are about something the artist or band has done recently so its like extended news. In the middle of the magazine is reviews this is because they less interesting than the news and feature article. There are also adverts for gigs in this part of the magazine , these are here so that they aren't at the back when people are getting bored and not reading them. The back of the magazine is full of less stand alone adverts like the classified ads and also the competitions are here as well. The back page is the most expensive page as it is a full colour page and you don't have to open the magazine to see it so the company/person has paid the most for that advert to be there.

Pie Chart

AOB 3 - (Music Press) Creating Meaning

In this analysis i am going to show the differences in two NME front covers, one from
nowerdays and another from the 60’s. I will aslo explain how these covers communicate
there meaning acros to the audience

This is a NME issue from April 2012. This issue is aimed at a wide range of people from 15 to 30. i can tell this as the main article on LADY GAGA is aimed at teenagers but the article on THE  LIBERTINES is aimed at the older generation. This is because they are trying to keep their readership as large as possible. The picture of GAGA in not very much will appeal to lads as it is quitle a sugestive pose in the picture, This may also appeal to the girls among the readers as GAGA is a rebel and likes to break the mold and some people aspire to be the same. Another way we can tell this is aimed at a wider audience is a young person would pick this up as it has SH*T on the cover and also because it hat the asterisks instead of the word itself appeals to a slightly older audience. The mode of address on this cover is very confrontation where as they dont beat around the bush they just say what they want. The cover promises to give the reader a inteview with GAGA that is “UNZIPPED” so possibly something you dont know about GAGA inside.

You can instantly see the difference between this copy of NME from the 70's. This issue was printed in newsprint is one major difference between now and then and also the lack of color. The design of this front cover has to be different to portray the same effect as the one from now. This version can't use color to create effect because the technology wasn't around to do it when this was printed. Instead of this  the 70's version uses bold typefaces, clear pictures of the artists and big text. It was quite common of the time to just show the head of the artists because it meant you could see who the article was about but they didn't have to pay to print whole body shot , it was also due to the fact they needed to save space. Because color couldn't be used to emphasize certain important words they had to make them bigger and bolder for example 'UNTAMED' on this cover is the biggest. In the newer version of NME they try to only use 1 or 2 different typefaces whereas on this old one they have lots because there is no color to differentiate between each different article. This issue is aimed at people in there mid to late teens who like rock, you can tell this by the artists that feature on the cover. On this front cover it speaks to the audience directly without quotes from the artist. This makes it less like the artist is addressing the audience directly and makes it look like NME is telling you what they said. The content of both of these editions of NME the content is fairly similar and are telling you what the band/artists are doing and getting a personal look into their work. This older version is more user friendly to look at but you could argue that the aim of the NME hasn't changed only the looks

AOB 4 -(Music Press) Representation

The press is suppose to inform its readers on current events and stories of mass interest with the facts. However some stories may contain bias because the writer may have a preconception about the issue. These views are not always put across by accident, some writers may do this to taint a possible sad story with a big twist and try to make people think that its not quite so sad after all.

In November 2009, a day before Stephen Gately's funeral, a writer for the Daily Mail "Jan Moir" released a article that stated skepticism of the ruling of Stephen's death. The main theme throughout this article was the fact that he was homosexual and the lifestyle that Moir speculated that he had. Moir came to the conclusion that the death wasn't just due to natural causes. She made this conclusion after Stephen died in his sleep after a night of partying with his partner Andrew Coles and another young man who they took to there apartment. Moir also mentioned other celebrities who have met tragic ends due to their lifestyles, saying that drugs have played a role in most cases.

This article that Moir wrote caused a huge uproar in the press and on social media site such as twitter, The Press Complaints Commission Received so many complaints about this article it crashed there servers. Moir was accused by many of Homophobia, being insensitive to Gately's Family and also inaccurate in her facts as she disregarded official rulings by professionals and made her own. The backlash of this article became bigger as well known celebrities started to voice there criticism toward Jan Moir such as Steven Fry, Derren Brown and Charlie Brooker. Steven and Derren Posted on twitter while Charlie wrote an article for the Independent which slated Moir. Moir said that her critism was not homophobic but stating that civil partnerships have the same pitfalls as marriage. The lifestyle criticism was aimed at the drug abuse and invitation of a stranger into his house rather than his sexual Preferences.   It has been noticed before that Moir was making a habit of criticizing openly gay public figures. It was made clear to the public that this underlying Homophobic views can not be just a coincidence. Moir was seen as more ignorant when she claimed that he natural cause of death of a hereditary heart problem was 'sugarcoating' for the more 'bitter truth. This was the cause of the insensitivity complaints that the PCC received.

A0B 5 -(Music Press) Ownership & Distribution

Time Warner

In the middle of 2010, The multi national media company that is Time Warner, was the worlds second largest media conglomerate as of the amount of revenue. The company that is first is Disney. Time Warner was the result of two companies merging, these were Warner Communication Inc and Time Inc Merging in 2010. Time Warner also announced there plans to merge with AOL which would form AOL Time Warner Inc which led to AOL stakeholders owning 55% of this new company


Task 2 

• 1991 - American Online formed.
• Immediately began to expand on it's existing online technology & backed it up with a clear business plan and aggressive marketing.
• These tactics worked and it soon became a major internet service provider (ISP) within America
• Another reason for their success was their offering of flat-rate internet access to the customers.
• Many big companies such as Microsoft tried to buy AOL but Chief Executive Steve Castle refused. Instead he continued to build the company independently.
• The company expanded even more in the US and reached into Europe and the UK.
• AOL had now reached a point that they could start shopping around for their own companies to buy and merge with
• Rival ISP, CompuServe was bought out by AOL in 1995 and AOL made the browser Netscape a subsidary.
• AOL looked to create an instant messaging service, therefore they focused their attention on software development companies.
• At it's peak in 2002, AOL had 26.7 million subscribers.

Task 3

• AOL/Time Warner merger one of the biggest deals ever.
• Took place during the biggest bubble of the stock market.
• Marked a triumph of the internet over the old media.
• AOL bigger name on the internet than Google at that time.
• Time Warner huge conglomerate controlling an empire of magazines, music movies etc.
• AOL/Time Warner formed the first fully integrated media and communications company for the internet century.
• While the merger was meant to be equal, it was evident that Steve Case (AOL) was the dominant partner.
• People believed the event would change the world, one reporter quoted to say "it will reinvent television and the possibilities are endless".
• This marked the 'dotcom revolution' where young internet companies were apparently worth billions, despite their revenue being next to nothing.
• Many people abandoned jobs to persue riches to be found in the dotcom revolution
• However, as hi-tech shares fell by 10% the bubble began to burst as was the young hopeful's dreams.
• AOL and Time Warner both had their pitfalls too,  AOL proved fickle and Time Warner had trouble adapting to the online world, a bad position to be in as AOL seemed to be becoming irrevelant.
• It was found that it was more important to build a great platform which everyone would enjoy using (Google) than owning the content and distributing over said platform.
• Its now seen that Google has changed the world, not AOL

A0B 6 - (Music Press) Regulation

The PCC (Press Complaints Comission) are Self regulatory, non statutory body so this means they regulate themselves. The PCC regulate Newspapers and magazines to make sure they aren't breaking the "PUBLISHERS CODE". The PCC are deemed Toothless as they can tell you off for breaking the code but cannot punish you for it. The PCC Is Funded By Levy from Newspaper companies. If you breech the code in one of your publications the editor writes a small apology on page 5 to say sorry for breeching the code and this is the first step to righting the wrong. The "publish and be dammed policy" is a policy whereby if you publish the story you will dammed by the PCC but the story will still be published. The most common complaint to the PCC is Accuracy of the articles that are published

The Code Covers lots of possible complaints and these are;

Opportunity to reply

Privacy

Harassment

Intrusion into Grief and Shock

Children and Children in Sex Cases

Victims of Sexual Assault

Discrimination

Financial Journalism

Confidential sources

Witness payments     

Payments to Criminals

Editors attempt to wriggle out of accusations by stating that the articles are in the interests of the public because the code says that it is ok to break the code if it is in the publics intrest to know. However the PCC has NO LEGAL POWERS.

A0B 1 - (Music Video) History

1922 -  First music video

MGM Musical

Julie garland extravaganza

Blackboard Jungle, Jailhouse Rock, Rock around the clock -  every one copied set apart adults and teenagers

Top Of The Pops, Ready steady go

Strawberry fields - First stand alone music video

Bohemian Rhapsody shot in 3 hours, stot because too hard to perform live. Only had £3500 to make video. All done with camera not after effects or programme similar.

Change in people's views, used to say that it takes away from the music.

millennium inspired by James Bond, Radio Gaga inspired my metropolis, California love inspired by mad max, Rush Rush inspired by rebel without a cause, Beat it inspired by West Side Story- more starting to be lead by movies.

Started advertising in music videos

One of The Monkees (Mike Nessbit) invented MTV. Mike found a empty live feed that he could use for a 24 h music video streaming

1979 - Pop Clips became a hit

MTV Launched on 1st August 1981 and first track was Video Killed The Radio Star

1983 was when the first black artist was shown on MTV

New tech influences Music Video because now there was a mean for them to be shown.

Anything went as long as it was quick and cheap Crazy, Chaos

Devo only made their music for videos not to sell as singles

1985 - CD’s available in shops

MTV had to start making money otherwise no more. less arty tomfoolery more mainstream videos

New Artist aged as young as 11 making videos to attract teenagers

Duran Duran had a idea for a music video before they had written the song.

Rock Stars didn't make videos they rocked live but once they saw music video worked the tried to feed of the hipe.

1985 - Cutting edge CGI graphics, everyone loved this new tech

set off a trend of animated videos

1983 - MJ released biggest hits and was king of video.

Thriller based on american werewolf in london, wasn't like other music videos it had a storyline and characters, BIG selling point for THRILLER.

This set of a home video trend

Thriller started a halloween themed music video trend

Madonna proved that video is a quicker way to stardom rather than touring s

he made her videos very sexual because of the critics

Lots of videos made in the nude because they got talked about and got passed around more and more.

1985 - BAND AID

When songs were used in movies they became free trailers for the movie