Research into similar products- Listings magazine 1

'What's on TV'
1-7 October 2011

The 'What's on TV' cover follows the conventional layout of a soap listings magazine. It has many large pictures layer over the page. This magazine is quite ordered with a lot of plain blue coloured space. The blue space makes the magazine quite approachable, welcoming and warm. The pictures are not all bordered with a square as they have circular edges and borders- like bubbles, this helps to break up the page and make it less regimental. With the large spaces between the articles it makes sure the teaser stories can be seen separately and not overlapped by one and other.

The hotspots are all placed on important features such as the middle of the main image, the main coverline, a teaser article and the price. These are placed here as they would be noticed straight away. The price is also placed here so it is seen by the reader and the magazine can be identified as low priced for the reader. In the primary optical area is the masthead/logo. This is something that is instantly recognisable to the reader. It is a simple logo with just two plain colours, creating a brand identity and something the audience will know if they see it. In the terminal optical area is a teaser for Corronation Street. This is in this area as it is the last thing the reader will see before they turn the page. The story is an important one for the issue, so placing it here draws the reader in, before they continue to read the rest of the magazine.

This magazine uses the logos for the individual soaps and television programmes. Rather than writing it in a separate font, it keeps to the one that is recognisable to the particular soap. This identifies the soap to the reader and would draw them in if they were a fan of that one, as they would recognise the font and style of the logo for that soap. It gives the magazine cover variation of fonts, rather than just keeping the same font continuously for the page.

The page follows the conventional route of the eye. First going through the masthead, the main image and coverline, through the teasers around the border to the terminal optical area. This is something seen on most magazines as it follows the most important things on the page, to pull the readers in.

Some of the teasers on the page are taken away from set, to be mainly close ups or mid shots. However some of the teasers are taken on set, straight from the episode they are from. This helps to show the situation the teaser is advertising, from which you can tell emotions are relationships. For example, the teaser of Steve and Tracy in Coronation Street shows Tracy who is pregnant laying on a bed, looking worried. Steve is sat beside her looking shocked and scared. Images such as these help the viewer to gain much more about the plot and soap, more so from which would be gained from a plain shot of the characters looking straight at the camera.

The language used on the cover is short, snappy and informal. Using short bursts of informal language appeal to the target audience as they are not bombarded with masses of information just on the front cover. They need to be able to gain a clear understanding of what is in the magazine, but in the simplest way possible. There are a lot of exclamation marks used, which emphasise the impact and the urgency of the storylines. The text used is a signifier to the audience that these storylines are really important to the soap and the development of the characters. The coverlines are combined in both capital letters and lower case, mostly the beginning of the storyline is in lower case, introducing the storyline. This is then followed by the capital letters having the larger impact, something that the audience will automatically look at.