Magazine Reviews 2

The main film magazines in the UK

There is a large number of magazines in the UK magazine market as it has proved quite a lucrative one. I will analyse 3 magazines that I believe best reflect the market as a whole. Out of the three magazines I will analyse the most popular is Empire closely followed by Total Film, which is a 'lads' magazine, and finally there is Sight & Sound which is a specialist film review magazine that aims at the share of the market which is constituted by the more sophisticated and cultured reader.

Empire

This magazines holds the largest share of readers in the whole market and as such it does tend to lean to a populist form of presenting their content. The magazine analyses both mainstream and art films but it naturally puts much more emphasis on the former which is in line with its profile. It contains a lot features aimed at consumers and even produces an additional complementary magazine titled 'At Home' which analyses DVD releases.

Total Film

Total film is a magazine aimed at the so called 'lad' culture and it is intended to be a magazine for 'blokes' meaning that the magazine often has a funny approach to the way in which they review movies. There is a certain degree of similarity of format between Total Film and Empire and in the way that they present their content.

Sight & Sound

Sight & Sound is a magazine that has been present on the British market for quite a long time as its first publication was in 1932. It is quite different to its, above mentioned, mainstream competitors as it does reviews of numerous art house movies with this being their main focus and mainstream movies being of lesser importance to the magazine. The magazine has however been criticised for producing content that could be considered snobbish. Roger Ebert described it as "by far the most respected of the countless polls of great movies--the only one most serious movie people take seriously."