Punch Magazine Research and Report

Magazine institutions today provide numerous amounts of content to the modern day consumer, whether it is relative to the genre or the pages provided. To get to a magazine being produced and ready to sell, a number of stages have to be produced all equal to the final production.

With this in mind, a classmate and I (Michael Fenton) have carried out a research report on all what’s carried out within the production of ‘Punch’, a magazine that ventured the borders of cartoon humour in the late 19^th century. We will be looking at these stages, and what are included within each. The main 3 stages can be interpreted as the institution, the audience as well as the content.

Punch magazine was a weekly British humour magazine running from 1841 through to 2002. It became successful though providing humorous anagrams and pictures as a main selling point, eventually being the forefront for ‘cartoons’.

When the magazine was first established, its initial substance was one of comedy and satire, and the general method for the delivery of this essence was through smart jokes, wit and cleverly illustrated cartons in order to provide a backbone to this humorous genre. One of the key issues about the content of punch was that it was not only sophisticated but it also lacked any offensive material which ensured that it could remain a staple among British households for generations to come.  Despite the reader friendly basis that the magazine upholds, it was not the main feature that upheld the magazines popularity, this was in fact essentially the instalment of the hand sketched “cartoons” inside the magazine. These would either be delivered within an article to support the main points or it would be separate to any article, and deployed as with a small joke displayed underneath, which would be based upon the said image and this is generally where the magazine generated the majority of its humour. In conjunction with the satirical cartoons, the magazine itself contained articles which would more often than not be related to issues and events at the time and took almost a similar stance to Shakespeare from where the writers used the magazine as a tool get their views of important members of society across than they may do by publicly speaking against these people. As a result of this, newspapers like ‘The Times’ and ‘News of The World’ often allowed Punch to deliver a column or article within their papers, and this again supports the claim that punch magazines content was sophisticated and well delivered enabling them to expand influence over the late 1800s and early 1900s media and entertainment.

The first edition of Punch Magazine was printed by Joseph Last of Fleet Street, with n the early years of its existence selling about 6,000 copies a week, signifying that despite not being around for to long, the magazine had already acquired itself a fairly extensive fan base, which it could build upon in later years. The majority of this fan base would reside in the sophisticated upper and middle classes of society, who would find the clever wit and smart humour of the magazine very appealing. As well as this, children within this society were also enticed and allowed themselves to then take in the cartoons of the magazine for their own entertainment purposes, thus aiding the magazine in appealing to more than just their initial target audience of these high members of society. However, it was this which became the main downfall for the magazines decline in sales and eventual closure of the business.

This concept was linked to the ‘suggester in chief’, who was the leading person with regards to delivering the content found within, whether it be for the look or the topic. The first and most successful of these was a man called Henry Mayhew who was responsible for Punch’s most successful times. He incorporated the idea that ‘politics is funny’, and used this as his vocal point to society. The reason for the success held from these positions within the magazines institution is that no other or media item was produced by the owners of punch, so the producers could exert all their efforts onto Punch, and therefore they could ensure only the best content was delivered within the magazine.

Like many of the modern magazines of today, much of Punch’s income was not directly obtained from the initial selling price, but it is in fact made from the use of advertising within the magazine itself, and in the original issues of the magazine it is clearly identifiable that on the front cover we can see examples of these advertisements, such as the advert for car insurance seen on the front of this issue:

 Despite the magazines initial success, it eventually succumbed to the element of time with much of its content becoming outdated to compared to the newer and more appealing comics such as beano and the dandy, and as magazines/comics became more popular amongst lower classes, the upper class began to lose their appeal for such a common media induced factor of entertainment. As a result of this decline in popularity and sales the magazine hit a downward spiral which started  towards the end of the 1940s, and despite the magazines commitment to its loyal fan base it was forced to discontinue and by 1992 it was forced to close. In 1996, Four years after the magazine was shut down Mohamed Al-Fayed, an Egyptian businessman purchased the rights to the magazine with the intention of using it a weapon against Private Eye, who Al-Fayed currently had a feud against due to un-favorable articles and criticisms being published within it. Despite its re-institution punch magazine failed to achieve its once overwhelming popularity and was again forced to be shut down in may 2002 after, after recording losses of around £16 million. This would be the final attempt to date of any comeback for punch magazine, and due to the lack of any real success for nearly 70 years, I believe that it will also be the last.  However In 2004, much of the archive, including the famous Punch table, was acquired by the British Library, thus helping to reinforce the magazine as a British classic even with the recent failure of the magazine, so the content found within the library will more notably be from the earlier days of the magazine, which was when it achieved greater success and contained more iconic material, such as items produced by the great Charles dickens.

Tatler magazine rate card and how magazines make money

 name of magazine - Tatler

total circulation – 110,638

adult readership – 198,00

gender – female 87% , male 13%

age – 44 average

ABC1  - 10,866 – 85%

Ad price - £14,013

Overall advertisement profits - £1,555,443

Revenue - £398296.80

How magazines make money

Most magazines in this day and age don’t rely solely on their initial selling price and the amount of people who purchase their magazine.  They now tend to generally make the larger percentage of their income from their use of advertisements within the magazine, this can be proven when a rate card based upon a certain magazine is produced and we can easily identify the advertisements as the primary source of revenue. But aswell as this area of income the magazines can make money from a variety of ways, and these can include things such as running competitions based upon the genre of the magazine or even selling their own products. The final key way to make income would be offering the consumer the opportunity to register with the magazine. To this they generally would have a pay an initial sign up cost, but from this special deals, offers and discounts would then be available for the new member to take advantage of, thus encouraging them to “pump” more money into the magazine coffers

school mag cover

analysis of music based magazine

I chose this magazine cover as it has more of a laid back look to it, as the band featured within the feature article photograph appear to be enjoying themselves and  not taking the photo shoot extensively seriously thus the denotation is that the band are fun loving and not seriousness. The connotation for this could be that the magazine are featuring this cover as they wish to raise the awareness that they work in a laid back, easy and enjoyable manor making their work good to read. The would serve the purpose to catch the attention of the consumer requiring a laidback read. The background of the photo is a beach and therefore is a sign telling the consumer that its now summer, the content of the photo itself can be interpretated  to be telling people to go out and have enjoy the weather, and that can be achieved by reading this magazine

The masterhead “spin” is displayed at the top right hand corner clear, bold and easy to read, this is so that the consumer knows exactly what they are reading and the fact its so bold shows a sense of pride felt by the editors and writers about the content and quality of their magazine. The masterhead is also polysemic because as well as just being the name of the magazine, it can also be related within connotation to the spinning of a disc or lp, as the spin is what produces the music, so the magazine could therefore be implying that they are the reason for music.

The strapline of the magazine “ break ups, crack-ups and some really hot models” is a summarisation of the feature band , the red hot chilli peppers and it works expansively with the feature article photograph to give the impression that the band are laid back and take things how they are, not seriously. It also continues to give the impression that the magazine itself will be a comedic read.

The puff “music for life” entitles that the magazine is passionate about music and therefore its going to be a dedicated magazine, and anyone who enjoys music will enjoy this magazine. It could also be connotative suggesting that music is their life, so for the best news and articles you should come to them.

There is also some intertextuality on show, this is displayed with the article entitled “ I didn’t pimp Britney” which would be involved in more than one magazine, as it is based upon such a well known star. It is also extravagantly important that this is on the front cover as being such a well known music artist many people would desire to read about her, so sign is thus attracting business by featuring high ranking celebrities on their main cover. The signifier of this is the quote itself as it can be accepted as humorous and thus people would prefer to read about this issue in the manor it has been produced, but the signified meaning however is serious as the article is about “pimping” which in itself is a crime.

The designers have also expertly left the issue details, price and barcode at the bottom right hand side of the page. This is so that it is not distracting the customer is not distracted by it until they have got the entire scope of the magazine and by the time they have got to the issue details they will hopefully have already made acted upon their desire to purchase the magazine.

They have also featured and article named “ whips bondage action”. Although not of a musical ethnicity this aims to break down the essential make up of the music magazine, and therefore giving it the edge over other magazines, as it offers that little bit more which is appetizing to readers particularly of the male background, and yet women will still read it out of common interest, which is fuelled itself by the name of the article, making the magazine appear more adult and mature.

Mock Magazine cover

preliminary exercise