Bauer Media & History of the Press

Bauer Media Group is diversified media conglomerate because they own multiple different media brands, aimed at different target audiences. For example, they make magazines like 'Empire', for people who like movies, and they make a magazines like 'Mojo', for people who like rock music.

The magazine industry is mostly owned by publishing companies, rather than the very large media conglomerates such as Disney, Amazon and Netflix that dominate film and television media worldwide.

Most magazines are struggling in a competitive market so this media form (print) may be best managed by owners who specialise in the print medium.

However, magazine publishing is globalised, like other media, with the most popular magazine brands (as measured by the National Readership Survey) in the hands of a few international companies.

Conglomerates like Bauer and Hearst 

Communications are still primarily print publishers 

with some associated television and radio.

MOJO is published by Bauer Media.

This company owns over 600 magazines, including 

two other UK music magazines – Q and Kerrang! The 

company has diversified the MOJO brand, offering 

mojo4music.com online in order to reduce the risk 

of only operating in one media form.

The company is itself diversified, with ownership of 

magazines, websites, radio stations and music 

television channels, which may help protect it from 

declining audiences for magazines.




1950-60s

- largely uncritical of musicians' output - everything was always good
- content: mainly charts and singles, gig listings
- changes in society in the 1960s with the arrival

The Rolling Stone was created by Jann Wenner in the 1960s, a fortnightly publication which contained a mixture 

Early 1970s - 'Glam rock'

- Sweet
- Mud
- T-Rex

Early 1970s - 'Progressive rock'
- Pink Floyd
- Emerson Lake
- Palmer

Music papers still largely uncritical of groups until the prog. rock bands begin to spend too much money on staging and lighting.


NME changed its style to meet punk head on. New writers were recruited from the magazine's own readership.

Mid 1970s - NME embraces punk - writers begin to move the paper away from simply music writing and start writing about serious issues such as politics.

1978 - Smash Hits launched a new glossy magazine catering for a younger audience in a smaller magazine format. It gave prizes and trivia quizzes, and you can give messages to your favourite artists.

1980s - Independent music labels wanted their own voice and began producing fanzines. These fanzines were often typed, photocopied and distributed at concerts or by subscription.

1990s - New technologies began to emerge. Music videos became popular which began to change many aspects of the ways in which music is consumed. Every single comes with a video.

1993 - MOJO
- debuted in the form of a magazine on the news-stands of Britain in 1993

2000s - daily newspapers feature pop stars and 'celebrities' appear on daytime TV. People are famous for being famous. Everyone in a band or with some talent assumes that they have a right to be rich and famous.

Music today is driven by what they have to promote, as the more relevant or popular the music is, the more that it will sell.

Conglomerate: a media institution/company that owns numerous companies involved in mass media platforms, such as television, radio, publishing etc.

Paid-for magazines with a readership over 1 million in the UK, in order of readership:

• What’s on TV - Time Inc - US magazine publisher

• Radio Times - Hubert Burda Media - German magazine publisher

• TV Choice - Bauer Media - German media conglomerate: magazines, radio and music

television

• Take a Break - Bauer Media

• Good Housekeeping - Hearst Communications - US media conglomerate: newspapers,

magazines, local radio and cable television

• Cosmopolitan - Hearst Communications

• BBC Gardeners’ World - Hubert Burda Media