SA Music Magazine

musicislife

Sorry for my ignorance, but is there a SA music magazine exclusively dedicated to music and where can I purchase it? I know there are a few SA music magazines, but they seem to only cater for a genre of music like hip-hop rock etc. So what im getting at is there a general sa music magazine available?

Neps

I know there is a mag called Music Maker.. But thats more aimed at the recording and performance side of things.. Straight out music mag like Guitar World.. I don't think so.. There is a Drum SA though.. One has to love us drummers, we get our own mag.. ?

Heath

thats cos drummer has more pictures for you guys to understand *duck*

AlanRatcliffe

Music Maker is now defunct.
Muse magazine is free and available from a number of music stores, CD shops, etc.

Heath

i always buy music maker , just bought there new edition , has a whole lot of articles on the history of guitars , the woods they use and so forth , normally a good read

AlanRatcliffe

Hmm. One of their advertisers told me they had closed down.

I subscribed for a year, but didn't bother renewing - tired with the focus being so wide that there would only be one guitar article an issue and the quite frankly, horribly inaccurate articles.

musicislife

So what I gather, the answer is no. Now do you think there is a market for a general music magazine in SA covering all aspects of music. Would this be too broad a spectrum to cover?

AlanRatcliffe

Not to broad if you're going for a 300 page mag, but that would raise the cover price substantially. Are you talking about a "general music" mag for music consumers or for musicians? Two completely different animals, probably requiring different editorial approaches. For a general music mag you have the fragmented nature of the local music industry, punters are less likely to shell out cash for a mag if it only has one article of interest to them. Music is very fragmented here with surprisingly little crossover between fans. So IMO the best approach is to fill one of the niche markets and contend with smaller distribution numbers.

Similarly a mag for musicians would have to focus on an instrument and go for a smaller market, rather than trying for a one-size-fits-all approach. There is some crossover into other disciplines (recording being the prime example), but generally if we're going to pay anywhere near the price of a set of strings for a mag, we want it to be packed with info - that is useful to us and our instrument. There are probably a few thousand of us who happily pay well over R100 per issue for Guitarist and Guitar Player because they have so much info - now imagine if there was a local magazine of the same calibre and a cover price of R50.

Most importantly a good local mag should avoid for the usual trap of pandering to their advertisers in their reviews. Most musicians will pick up on that smartly and immediately dismiss all the reviews as being biased, and bang goes the biggest reason for real musos to buy the mag.

All the above very much IMO - my experience is more with books than mags, so I'm happy to be corrected on any misconceptions I might be harbouring. ?

musicislife

Great post thanks. I will have to do some research. I think there is a market for a magazine tailored to SA musicians. I know what you mean about the reviews being biased, it happens all the time unfortunately.

Regards

Audiosure

musicislife wrote Great post thanks. I will have to do some research. I think there is a market for a magazine tailored to SA musicians. I know what you mean about the reviews being biased, it happens all the time unfortunately.

Regards

As an advertiser, I find Muse Magazine and BPM Mag excellent because of the spread of their distribution and the fact that its free. When they do articles and reviews they are always unbiased and therefore the mag has credibility.

Music Maker is still running but I'm not sure how their market penetration is (my guess is quite small), I think they are trying to push it online more now.

If you are going to try and launch a new magazine, do some thorough research into other mags that have come and gone. I think the magazine would have to be distinct and MUST be distributed through music stores, CD shops etc, plus a subscriber base, as opposed to through a news agency or book shop. I reckon you'd be in for some very stiff competition from BPM/Muse if you can't delivery superior content and find a way to compete with them being FREE.

Chris

musicislife

It would be tough yes, I must be honest and say that I havent done any research yet on the subject, I will have to spend many hours looking at the competition. Thank you all for the great advice.