Smash Hits magazine Analysis

The publishing company of this magazine was Emap. Smash Hits was a monthly magazine. The first issue was released in November 1978 and unfortunately the last issue was released on13 February 2006. This magazine became an iconic title whose sales peaked at a million in 1989 but fell steadily to 120,000, just behind BBC rival weekly Top of the Pops, which was helped along due to the TV programme. Emap also closed Just Seventeen in 2004, the closures signifying a switch in teenage spending from magazines to online and mobile phone based media. The week the closure was announced, a copy of the first issue sold on EBay for £30.
In this image of one of the many issues of ‘Smash Hits’ a photograph of a young teenage boy holding a bunch of roses is denoted. This image could link in with the article featured on the magazine, so this could be Ben Adams from A1. The colour of the roses he is holding are red this could connote romance, therefore giving the audience a clue to what the targeted audience is. I think that the target audience is young teenage girls aged 11-15, this would be because; firstly the colour pink is used a lot, secondly all of the pop groups mentioned are ‘girly’ such as ‘Westlife’ and ‘S Club 7’ and lastly because of the photograph of the young boy on the front of this magazine. The price of the magazine which was £1.45 could indicate that the target audience was a working class teenager who didn’t have too much pocket money, so the magazine needed to appeal to this audience in order for the young teens to spend their money on this. I think that this magazine has done this successfully.

The main colours used are blue and pink, the colour pink is associated with girls and the colour blue is associated with boys, so the colours used on this magazine cover could suggest that this magazine is trying to reach out to a wider audience which includes teenage boys. Another element that suggests this is the fact that the boy who features on the front is also wearing the colour blue so this could suggest that he could be a good role model and idol for both boys and girls to aspire to.

As the viewer looks to the bottom right side they will see another element that indicates towards the female market. There is a list of bands that feature in the magazine, (BSB, Five, Westlife, Steps, Ant & Dec, S Club 7, and Bewitched) when I hear the names of these pop bands I automatically think that the audience will be mostly females. In the box which says this, the colours used are yellow and pink; this is because they are two very different contrasting colours which help it stand out and the colour pink is a very feminine colour.

When looking through at lots of different issues of ‘Smash Hits’ the same font has been used for the title of the magazine, this is so when the magazine is on the shelf amongst rival magazines the target audience will automatically be able to pick it out from the others. But sometimes the colour will change from white with a red background to red on the plain white background but still using the same font. Sometimes the location of the title will differ according to what the image is on the front of the magazine.