Music magazine searches for fans

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Oct 01, 2004 by Kropf, Annemarie

SYRACUSE -- A new, Syracuse-based music magazine may soon strike a chord with the senior market nationwide.

With the tag line "better living through recreational music making," Making Music magazine is targeted at hobbyists and active music makers, says Antoinette Follett, editorin-chief and president of Bentley-Hall, Inc., the Syracuse company publishing the magazine.

"We're focused on building a community for amateur musicians," says Follett. She notes that other music magazines, such as Modern Drummer and Guitar World focus more on how to make CDs, create hit songs, and other things to propel bands to stardom, rather than just playing for fan.

The magazine's target audience, the "senior market," is defined as those between 50 and 70 years old.

"The senior market is an emerging market," Follett says. "Fifty- to 70-year-olds are empty nesters who have more time and income."

On Oct. 14, Making Music will officially launch at the "Life @ 50+" AARP convention expo in Las Vegas. The magazine will be bimonthly at first, but Follett hopes to make it monthly in two years. The first issue of the magazine is 40 pages, and 45,000 copies have been printed. Wilcox Press in Ithaca is the printer.

Making Music will be distributed primarily to music stores in the beginning, but over time will also have free distribution in non-traditional spots" such as health clubs, senior centers, and doctors' offices, Follett says. On the newsstands, each issue costs $4.95. An annual subscription costs $16.95.

Departments in the magazine include product spotlights, a musician profile, health and ergonomics page, how-to page, book reviews, destinations, and a question and answer session with readers. Gender-neutral in content, Follett says she expects the audience to be 50/50 male and female. She'll know for sure via the Internet.

"We're still trying to fine-tune our audience," says Follett. "We'll do that through our Web site." When a person asks for a free copy of the magazine via the Web site, he or she will be asked to fill out a brief survey.

Bentley-Hall has provided the funding for the magazine, but Follett notes that advertising revenue has a lot of potential. For its debut issue, the advertisers are primarily instrument manufacturers, but Follett says she hopes in the future also to have advertisers such as Carnival Cruise Lines and Celebrex.

"We've started on a modest budget," she says. "We aren't throwing all our money at this project."

Follett would like to see Making Music double in size and print 100 pages of copy each issue "to build the community of music makers."

Serving the readers is the most important aspect of the magazine, Follett adds.

"The senior market is vastly underserved," she says. "It's not like this is skateboarding, something they dropped a long time ago. Music is a lifelong hobby and a passion that people never lose."