13. Niche Magazines

A niche is a sub-genre of a large genre, for example Rock music has a huge market and would appeal to a wide range of people. However the niche genres (sub genres) inside of rock would be Thrash metal, speedcore, hardcore ect ect. An example of a niche magazine is "Metal Forces" magazine which involves the niche genre of Thrash metal therefore appeals to a much smaller and specific range of people making it Niche. 
The pros and cons of a Niche Magazine


PROS:

• They are aiming to a specific target audience 
• Can be a high demand market
• Buyers interested will be able to find you easily
• You may be the first to tackle this genre therefore become a trend setter allowing your business and company to grow.

CONS:

• As it can be a really small market the income of profit may be small or very little
• Very competitive market
• May take longer to establish yourself
• Could be so unpopular and specific that no one will want to buy it.

An example of a Niche Magazine is a fishing magazine called "Trout fisherman". 

This would have come from the huge genre of:

Sport

down to 

fishing

down to 

Fly Fishing

down to

Trout Fishing 

This is an example of a sub-sub-genre making it extra niche. 

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Brands/Trout-Fisherman/

"Trout Fisherman" is owned by Bauer Media, which owns huge successful, well known magazines such as "Heat", "GRAZIA", "Kerrang!", "FHM" alongside popular radio stations such as "Kiss HM" which generates millions of pounds. However you can also see that they have invested in more Niche magazines such as "Bird Watching", "Steam railway" and "Golfs world". Bauer can use the economy of scale as it can produce and print Niche magazines much more cheaply but still have the guaranteed success as it is a huge industry. Bauer media it reaches over 90 million adults in the Uk over multiple media channels. 

"Trout Fisherman's" average target audience is a 51 year old male . They aim it at ttraditional game fishermen with much higher than average income, who spend a lot of money on gear and are looking for high quality equipment. I think this magazine is aimed at experienced fishermen – more than half have been fishing for more than 20 years which again is a very Niche target audience. However those really interested in the hobby will probably buy this magazine to accompany there box of fishing tools.


"Trout Fisherman ( Bauer Consumer Media ) : 17,565 ; -
5.6%"
In the last 6 months of 2011 they sold 17565 copies of "Trout Fisherman" which is 5.6% less than the same period in 2010. This could be due to  the economic crisis alongside the average reader of this magazine which is 51 this is around the age retirement so therefore they may not have the money to spare to spend on this magazine. Also I presume in this modern day of technology fishing is becoming less and less popular as a hobby and certainly very few people in my generation go fishing so you could question as the generations die down sadly so does the hobby. Also Fly fishing is a very techinical way of fishing and requires a lot of skill and is not the most popular way of fishing so maybe people do not want to buy it. Companies would usually worry about having a 5.6% loss however as Beauer Media is such a huge company they can afford to keep the Niche magazine.