Billboard analysis
- 2. Masthead The housestyle of the masthead follows through out all issues of Billboard: Slim white font, medium size, going across the whole width of the cover. All of the gaps in the lower case letters are all coloured in which give the magazine its recognition. Cover lines Following the same housestyle as the masthead with the slim white font. The words are very small except “NYC” which is bigger and bold, known as a short term for New York City relating to the main image; Beyonce, giving her that known presence. The information given is very straight forward and are all about music, other than billboard magazine being a music one, this gives the target audience knowledge of Beyonce being an artist. Main Cover line Switching from the housestyle of the magazine, “Beyonce” is in a different more formal font which may represent her character that she is different to most. It is also the biggest cover line on the page. “Live At Roseland” is in a very stylish font relating to the main image and general image of Beyonce and her personality, this may also give “Roseland” a good reputation being a very posh place as Beyonce will also be live there. Date/Website/Barcode Due to all these things being in the same place on the page in the corner in a very small font this may show that Billboard don’t care much about aiming those things at the target audience, they’d rather the stories and image dominate the page. essential elements on magazine if they are to sell copies!! Its relatively small box and tends to be put towards the bottom right of the page (out of the way of the main copy) Main image The main image is show is of the music artist Beyonce. Her skin colour is the main theme of the image theme, going with her gold hair and the editing; colour of the background seems like it was changed from white to a hint of brown colour. This all gives Beyonce the sense of royalty. The gesture and face expression she is showing is quite seductive, this may represent the stereotype of women as being seductive and lady like. By having Beyonce as the main image of the front cover almost covering u the whole page it also gives women a sense of dominance for this issue telling us who the target audience is.
- 3. Housestyle The housestyle differs very much from the front cover as a black & white theme with hints of yellow as the section headers. It has a rule of thirds making the structure look quite basic. The masthead from the front cover is placed at the top of the page but looks very small. In the left column on the page is a chart list of different albums, artists, songs and this weeks brief chart list, this shows what the magazine is about and points out vital information to the target audience straight away being on the contents page. The “No.1” is bold and white standing out in a black box above the chart list showing it relates to the list and it is an important thing being number 1, also, it is abbreviated which shows it isn’t very formal. All bold words that stand out share the same font style varying from the others such as text in the middle section using “Times New Roman” font style which may relate to the celebrity in the main image who is portrayed as formal and smart and other plain bold styles which may denote Michael Buble’s face expression or personality. Also relating with the image is the chart list which is in a grey background and the celebrity “Michael Buble” is wearing a grey jacket which we can see in the close up shot of him. The songs/albums/artists in the chart lists have coloured tabs next to them which seem like they are grouping the songs in genres to aim at the target audience, this shows that Billboard cover a wide range of genres for different target audiences helping them sell more issues. This page also contains pagination Main Image The celebrity in the main image, Michael Buble has quite a blank serious face expression, there isn’t much colour to him or the background which goes with the housestyle of the black and white themed page. We notice who the celebrity is in the image because he’s cover story is titled in the corner of it in white font separating itself from the main housestyle. Michael Buble is staring into the camera which notates he is loo king at the reader, this makes them feel slightly more closer to the celebrity attracting their eye. Images on top banner These are the story images which also have the page numbers. The 3 images are in a banner structure all the same size and all look different in genre and target audience. The people in each image have different gestures, face expressions and background, this shows that billboard magazine cover a wide range of: Articles, stories and music artists. Rihanna Image/ Home front The image of Rihanna is in black & white as she is wearing all black and pulling quite a fierce face expression and gesture. She is included in the home front section which shows that she has a role of importance in the magazine issue. The home front section contains brief information about Billboard and there issues making the target audience feel more involved with the magazine. Rihanna is mentioned in the text as having hits with Billboard promoting her album “Talk that Talk” Rihanna hits on the Billboard website: http://www.billboard.com/artist/rihanna/658897#/artist/rihanna/658897
- 4. MISE EN SCENE This is created by the image of Michael Buble and the industrial background. And may relate to Michael Buble’s life style and music MAIN IMAGE This medium shot of Michael Buble, this creates mise en scene as the background may relate to his style of music/life as they are very industrial, urban classed as mainstream, which also may relate to the target audience of this article COPY - this is wrapped around images this can show there importance on this page. In addition to this there is no drop capital that you would expect to find on a double page spread. PAGE NUMBER/NME TITLE/DATE – This conventional and expected to see on all double page spread. SECOND IMAGE – This is and image of ‘Micheal Buble’ on a live performance, and has a brief caption about this. The reduces the amount of information the reader is given. RULE OF THIRDS – The text is split into 3 columns to give the copy a structure as there is quite alot of text in a very small black font SUB HEADING – This is brief information about what is to come in the article, in this case this is description about ‘Michael Buble’ live performance on Saturday night live. MAIN HEADLINE – This gives the reader a insight of what the article is about, in this case ‘Buble for the holidays’. It is also quite informal, which doesn’t relate to Buble’s dress sense in the images but this may tell us that he isn’t as formal as he looks.
- 5. Billboard is a chart magazine covering all genres, artists and albums in the chart, this shows that there is a wide range of target audience that are in to the main stream side of music, and I believe this will help me know the difference of uncharted/underground music and charted music in my music magazine based around Hip-Hop/R&B. Billboard magazine started in the US but also sold in the UK. Teens – young adults as it mainly includes new music. Due to the artists featuring in/on the Billboard magazines, the target audience would be in to artists such as: Rihanna Beyonce Jay-Z Lil-Wayne Drake Miley Cirus Usher Katy Perry Adele Trey Sonz
- 6. http://www.billboard.com/#/ Billboard was founded in Cincinnati on November 1, 1894, by William h. Donaldson and James Hennegan. Within a few years of its founding, it began to carry news of outdoor amusements, a major consumer of billboard space. Eventually Billboard became the paper of record for circuses, carnivals, amusement parks, fairs, vaudeville, minstrels, whale shows and other live entertainment. The magazine began coverage of motion pictures in 1909 and of radio in the 1920s. At the start of 1961, The Billboard was renamed Billboard Music Week. The publication was now devoted almost entirely to the music industry, with some coverage of coin-operated vending and entertainment machines on its jukebox pages. The title was changed to simply Billboard at the start of 1963. In 2005, the magazine and its web sites were repositioned to provide coverage of all forms of digital and mobile entertainment. Shortly after then its frequency of publication was reduced to monthly, and it finally ceased publication following its May 2006 issue. Billboard is headquartered in New York with bureaus in Los Angeles and Miami, and has editorial correspondents in major cities around the globe. Billboard maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis. The two most notable charts are the Billboard Hot 100, which ranks the top 100 songs regardless of genre and is based on physical sales, digital sales and radio airplay; and the Billboard 200, the corresponding chart for album sales. Info from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_%28magazine%29