Music magazines are generally aimed at male readers, a main example of a more prominent male readership is NME magazine,

where the ratings are established to have a 69% male audience. A male audience would most likely read this magazine because of the connotations of primary colours that are displayed on the cover. Connotations of the primary colour red are fire, blood, fun and danger, a male audience would most likely want to feel the feeling of danger and fun while reading this magazine. As well as the colours, the main image tends to be of a woman; this image creates the sex appeal that the male reader would be attracted to. Also, the main image can be of a male popstar or a group. This main image shows the male popstar or the band to not be too attractive, this is so a female audience would not be attracted to the magazine and also it establishes them to be a serious character. The male cover may be who the boys aspire to be, so this male popstar helps build the personal identity of the male reader buying the magazine, for example on the date of 17th November 2012 a cover of NME was released with the artist Jake Bugg on the cover. Jake is shown to have a beer in his hand. The beer would relate to the male reader, and this reader would want to read the article about him because of the relation between them both. A female reader is more intended to read a magazine such as Top of the Pops, where the readership of females is 87%. We can see from a cover of Top of the Pops that it is prominently a female audience because of the stereotypically girly colour scheme which is pink and purple. The colour pink has connotations of warmth, hope and femininity. These traits signify everything a teenage female audience would want in a magazine. Also, the cover artist tends to be either an attractive teenage male popstar who a female audience may be attracted to, and want to read about. However, the front cover could be of a group or a female popstar, this cover artist is most probably who a teenage girl would idolise. An example of this is the issue that was released on 13th October 2010, this issue had Cheryl Cole on the front of it. She is a female who is looked up to by many females across the UK. The content of NME magazine exemplifies how the magazine is aimed at a male reader. One reason why NME is magazine is aimed at males is because the advertisement are for male brands, however the magazine does include some female adverts such as Loreal which is directed towards the 31% of female audience. On the other hand, Top of the Pops includes advertisement that is for a typically stereotypical female, such as beauty products. A magazine that is directed to both male and female audiences is Kerrang magazine. The ratings of Kerrang magazine are 57.4% male and 42.6% female. An audience would notice this magazine is directed towards both sexes from the front cover. An example of a magazine that displays clearly that Kerrang is directed to both sexes is the edition that was released on the 13th November 2010. The cover is of Hayley Williams, even though she is a female, females would like to read about her because she isnt sexualised. Males would like to read about her from this cover because even though she isnt sexualised, she is still considered to be an attractive female.