Sarah's Research Blog : 2013

Mark Ellen and David Hepworth (the founders of Q) felt that older music buyers were being ignored so they targeted their magazine at music buyers over twenty five years old of both genders. Instead of aiming at teenagers and young people as most other music magazines do.
The fact that the target audience is slightly older means the magazine can afford to be more expensive than if it were to be aimed at young people as the target audience they are aiming at are likely to have a greater income and be prepared to spend more on a music magazine. Having an older audience means that magazine can contain more information about the old ‘classic’ albums and music from the past decades. Having a mass audience due to its popularity the magazine could also be referred to as having a niche audience, as it is specifically aimed at only music fans.

v The magazine has an review section, featuring: new releases, reissues, film and live concert reviews, as well as radio and TV reviews.

vThe magazine is well known for compiling lists. It has created many, for example, "The 100 Greatest albums" and "100 Greatest '100 Greatest' Lists".

vEvery other month, Q has a special edition-about musical time, genres, or a very important/influential musician.

vEvery issue of Q has a different message on the spine. Readers then try to work out what the message has to do with the contents of the magazine. The spine also consist of the different artists that are featured within the magazine-giving readers a quick and straight forward way to know if they will enjoy the issue and make buying (choosing) the magazine more efficient.