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Monday 16 January 2012

Post - Research into institutions that distribute similar products

PRINT brief

 To research magazine distributors for many UK magazines - first follow these easy steps
  1. Go to http://www.mediauk.com/magazines
  2. Use the alphabetical links to find the magazine you are looking for, e.g. K for Kerrang.
  3. Click on the magazine title, e.g. Kerrang, then on the next page look near the top for the name of the magazine's owner (publisher), e.g. BauerMedia. Click this link.
  4. See what else the company owns / publishes. Copy and paste the URL and the date you accessed it in order to reference the source into your post "Research into institutions that distribute similar products". This will help you comment in your evaluation (at the end of the project) on what kind of institution might distribute (publish) a magazine like the one you produce.
  5. Near the top of the page, find the link for the owner's website (not the magazine's website) and open it in a new tab.
  6. Copy and paste the URL of the owner's website into your post "Research into institutions that distribute similar products" and the date you accessed it in order to acknowledge the source.
  7. From these two sources, make a note of the range of magazines the owners publish, and other media interests that they have. For those with tens of magazine titles, record a sample of big-selling magazines and a few niche (specialist interest) one.
 Then the thinking part:
  1. Identify any other music magazines they publish. Explain why one distributor would publish more than one music magazine.
  2. Why might this company be interested in adding your magazine to their list of titles? They wouldn't want another magazine that targets similar content at the same audience as one of their existing titles. So, is your magazine sufficiently different from the music magazines published by this distributor? In what ways?
Extend your research:
  1. Repeat the process for another music magazine from a different publisher.
  2. Can you find a publisher that does not have a title quite like yours and who therefore might be interested in adding it to their list of titles?

VIDEO brief

 To research film distributors - first follow these easy steps
  1. From the film openings you have researched, identify the distribution companies. If you cannot distinguish production companies from distributors, look up the film on http://www.imdb.com/ and look towards the bottom of the page for a link to company credits.
  2. Search / follow the links to the film's distribution companies on http://www.imdb.com/ 
  3. Copy and paste the URL and the date you accessed it in order to reference the source into your post "Research into institutions that distribute similar products".
  4. Make a note of a range of other films that each company has distributed. For those with tens of titles, record a sample.
Then the thinking part:
  1. Why might this company be interested in distributing your film? Explain in what ways your film would be similar to other products they have dealt with.
Extend your research:
  1. Can you find out whether the distributor you have looked at is owned by another larger company? If so, record who owns them and note what other media interests they have.
  2. If you have researched blockbuster films that are distributed by mainstream distributors, it will be difficult to claim that they would be interested in the kind of film that you could produce. (Remember the advice in the researching similar products prezi about being realistic and keeping it simple). You will need to find distributors that do deal in small-scale, low budget, independent, British films and then find film titles that they have dealt in. Record this information. 
  3. Add comments to your post on why such a distributor would be a more likely distributor for your film.

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