Media institution research

Bauer Media Group is a European-based media company, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany run that manages a portfolio of more than 600 magazines, over 400 digital products and 50 radio and TV stations around the world.

Bauer Media is a multi-platform media group, with locations across the UK. Following their purchase of Emap in 2007, The Bauer Media Group acquired a collection of media brands. This includes heat and Grazia as well as a radio portfolio of national radio brands such as KISS FM UK and Magic, and regional radio brands across major UK cities. In 2013, Bauer Media also acquired the Absolute Radio Group from Times of India. Bauer Media also broadcasts TV music channels including The Box TV, in a joint venture with Channel 4. In the UK Bauer Media is the sister company of H Bauer Publishing, who publish titles including Take a Break. 

Kerrang! is a brand that specialises in rock music. It originally began as a magazine and in 2004 Kerrang Radio was launched. A Kerrang TV channel also exists. As of 2005 all of Kerrang TV's programme content is music videos the majority of which is open scheduled for text requests from their playlist, so it is clear to see that this media group has developed massively and its growth in finances just from profit has been huge due to the success of their magazines, television programmes and radio shows. Kerrang is a very teenager age bracket, it uses slang and language that adolescents can relate to and they branch out on social media which of course teenagers are always on, so effectively teenagers are the perfect target audience because there are so many different direct ways to share the music and material with them.

Another part of their digital empire is magic FM which play different genres of music, they tend to go for number 1 hits, they could be old or they could be new, so due to this they have a broad target audience as there is a vast variety of music from different decades that can be played, however it also introduces people to music they wouldn’t normally take an interest in which then opens new doors for one’s musical variety if they’re then into many different types of music.



This has influenced my planning and creativity as I now know a lot more about media institutions and looking for gaps in the market which I can then base my magazine on a genre that has a gap in the market.