Top of the Pops is a British monthly music magazine published by BBC Magazines. The genre of music that this magazine focus' on is pop, which is a widely known genre and has one of the largest audiences. The magazine targets an audience of people who are interested in pop music, generally female teenagers. This is shown through the dominant pink/purple colour used in the text, logo and as the models clothes, which highlights that this is targeted at a female audience. The magazine has used three main colours; pink, purple and white these are all feminine and bright colours suggesting that the magazine could be aimed at a younger, more feminine audience. The strap line states “which pop star was a school misfit?” this indicates that the magazine is aimed at a younger audience because it contains articles that will interest them. The main aim of a magazine cover is to promote the magazine through the use of catchy news/ strap lines or images of popular celebrities to sell the magazine to a larger audience.
The magazine features chart information, star gossip, fashion and beauty advice, quizzes, song lyrics and posters. It is a supplementary magazine for the TV show Top of the Pops therefore people who watch the TV show will be more likely to buy the magazine too. It helps promote the magazine on TV making it more familiar and known to the audience. The magazine is called ‘Top of the pops’ which limits the amount of music genres related to the magazine because it indicates that it is part of the music genre of pop. Many people will recognise the masthead because it is popular for containing articles about pop stars. It contains the top pop singers and top news on pop singers therefore attracting a bigger audience of individual’s interested in the pop music genre. The masthead immediately informs the audience what the magazine is about even before reading the strap lines or seeing the image.
A large image of the pop star, Britney Spears, in mid shot, covers the front magazine to make iherstand out and catch the audience’s attention. Other images are placed around the magazine cover to match the text for example, it states ‘free pop badges’ and there are pictures of badges to grab young audience attention because badges are usually aimed at a younger audience than adults. Britney Spears is a young pop star and this relates to the music genre of the magazine and to its target audience of teenagers. Also, a female idol is used to match the audience of the magazine and share their interests. Britney Spears is placed in the middle of the frame which shows that she is the centre of attention and she is the selling point of the magazine that will help sell it. She is also positioned more to the right side/intersection of the magazine because the photo will become more balanced and will enable a viewer to interact with it more naturally. The masthead of the magazine is placed on the left hand corner of the magazine because it’s the name of the magazine so it must be placed separately so that it is clear to the audience. Britney Spears is dressed in purple which matches the theme colour of the magazine. She also looks very glamorous which highlights that she is a pop idol. The colours contribute to the mood of the magazine making it seem more feminine and eye catching.
The strap lines advertised in the cover are aligned to the left side so to create stronger balance because it is visually connecting elements on the page that relate to the target audience and genre of the magazine. For example, ‘Win a call from your favourite pop star’ this strap line is likely to interest young people who are obsessed, rather than older, mature adults because it allows them to connect with their favourite pop stars. The strap line on Britney spears uses alliteration: “Oh Behave, Britney” and “Partying till dawn, Pub crawls and Pampering”. Alliteration helps sentences to flow easily and it also draws attention to the particular adjective used and the subject involved. It seems to address Britney informally with a witty quote which suggests that the inside this magazine you will find out more hidden secrets about Britney Spears. It also draws the audiences attention as they want to know why Britney is being told ‘behave’, people tend to have interest in gossip and what celebrities have done which they shouldn’t do as it’s more exciting. “Behave Britney” is the largest text in the whole magazine cover which shows that it is the main topic they want to share and will draw the largest audience. The text is all in bold and in bullet points which makes it stand out and indicates that all the information in the is relevant and important. The text is also all in capitals as it draws more attention to the words used and grabs the audience’s attention. The only words in lower case are the website URL and the credits which suggest that they are less important because they are not news that will make an audience want to read the magazine. Such content does not make the magazine cover unique from other magazines therefore it does not focus much, if any, attention on the credits because they do not target a particular audience in comparison to the strap lines and advertisements used which do.
