History of Top of the Pops magazine

Top of the Pops is a typical pop music fan magazine. This magazine used to be targeted at young adults however over the years it's readers have become younger and younger with ages 4 and over now reading the magazine. 

The magazine was launched in February 1995, and it is famous for giving The Spice Girls their nicknames e.g 'Babyspice'. It was originally marketed as the missing link between Smash Hits and NME and began much in the mould of Q magazine, then changed its editorial policy to directly compete with popular teen celebrity magazines, with less music content and a demographic shift to young girls. It is still in publication despite the cancellation of the TV show. 

Top of the Pops content:

• Oops, Shameful Celebrity Slip Ups— The funniest celebrity pictures associated with a witty quote
• Your Oops—Readers send in their most shameful stories
• Gossip 2 Go—The month's hottest celebrity gossip
• Shayne's World—The X-Factor series 2 winner Shayne Ward takes readers over what goes on in his world
• Don't Miss—The magazine picks some of the hottest films, TV programmes and games, plus the latest single reviews by a random celebrity.
• Top Of The Shops—The magazine picks out some of the hottest bargains, where readers can buy them, and their price
• Real Life—The magazine draws attention to situations that happen in the real world
• The Surgery—Originally called Star Therapy, this was hosted by a random celebrity who tries to sort out readers' problems.
• Your Letters—Hosted by Dick and Dom who take a look at some of the magazines readers' gossip about stars, clothes or just real life situations.

Top of the Pops typical reader:

The typical reader for this magazine are girls ages between 6 and 16 however this can vary as I know of girls younger than 6 reading them. 

Top of the Pops house style:

The house style is all different pinks with white writing, these connote together to emphasise the girly feel to the magazine and the colours immediately suggest that the target audience is young girls. The font used is sans-serif which is informal and conversatinal, perfect for talkative girls, also the different sized fonts create a busy front cover. The main image on the front cover is of Justin Bieber a teen pop artist, which shows the magazine is aimed at the pop genre. The image shows him smiling and looking directly at the reader which makes the reader feel like they are invited into the magazine and it is placed directly in the centre of the page making this the focal point for all readers. Also as he is smiling, it creates happiness which will make the readers want to buy the magazine.

Smaller images: all of the smaller pictures are of other celebrities well known to teenage girls and related to pop music, this shows that this magazine is all about the pop genre. The use of lots of images and writing on the front cover suggests that the target audience is quite young as a cramped page full of interetsing things is very appealing to a young person, therefore they are more likely to buy the maagzine. All of the articles seem to be about fashion and boys, for example 'snuggle up to One Direction' and '12 star looks revealed' which again makes it obvious to us that the target audience is for teenage girls. The price of this maagzine is £3.99 which people would think is expensive for young girls to buy, however it is clearly so that if the children want it then their parents will buy it for them. After they engage in the magazine this can encourage them to buy it each week.

Producer and Distributor of Top of the Pops

The magazine is bother produced and distributed by BBC Magazines.

Social groups representation in Top of the Pops:

Here are the typical topics 'top of the pops' readers would be interested in:

• Celebrities
• Boys
• Fashion
• Make-up tips
• Agony aunt stories for them to relate to
• Quizzes
• Horoscopes
• Posters
• These magazines have zero tolerance for swear words, as the readers can be very young
• Most of the images will have people smiling and looking happy in contrast to NME magazine

Top of the Pops is mostly interested in being successful and making money compared to rock magazines which seem to focus mainly on voicing their own opinions. The ideology is typical for attracting the target audience, they use girly and soft colours and fonts and the front image always has connotations of happiness for example, the usual celebrity star on the cover is more often than not smiling.