Musical Magazine in Bangladesh

Age:

Our main target consumers are in the age area of 16 - 35 years. Not to miss out the other people, we also had children from 12 - 15 years and people of 35 years above for the survey. Around 7% of the sample were of 12-15 years of age, and 5% were of more than

35 years of age. Most of our samples were of the age groups 21-25 years and 26-30 years. These are the people going to universities or working as executives in Private Firms or NGOs. These people are enthusiastic, interested about music and entertainment and have money to spend on leisure items. 56% of the total sample were of 21-30 years of age.

Gender & Occupation:

56% of the 275 samples were male, whereas 122 pf them (44%) were female. The samples included students of schools, colleges and universities, executives from NGOs and Private organizations, some doctors, engineers and businessmen, computer-related

people, homemakers and some others. College-university students were more willing to purchase a music-based magazine, whereas executives were interested about it but not much sure whether to purchase them or not. Students of English medium institutions

made it a point to make the magazine of international standard and preferably in English.

Which type of Music are the People listening to?

Bangladesh always has a very large number of people who are interested to listen to Hindi film songs. English Pop music has been popular among more of the city-dweller upper class and upper-middle class youths. Bangladeshi Bands also have a large number of fans. Surprisingly, Bangladeshi Folk music listeners were most in numbers - which seemed quite unexpected. But as we came to know, most of our target samples do not

listen to the traditional rural folks. They do not listen to Kangaalini Sufia, Mumtaaz, Abdul Kuddus Boyaati or Abdul Alim. Then which Bangla Folk are these people referring to? And how come folks seem to be more popular than Bands and Hindi songs? Our music-lovers enjoy Bangla Folks that are fusion, with modernized treatments, a mix of Bangla folk with western instruments. They love the band Bangla and Anusheh, Habib and his fusion albums, Paban Das Baul, Dalchhut and to some extent, may be Farida Parveen. And this fusion folk has fans in Bangla song lovers, Hindi lovers and English or Metal music lovers. Bangla modern songs are hugely affected by the popularity of Asif, Kaneez Shuborna, Bappa Mazumders. And Tagore songs are more popular than Nazrul's.

Interested consumers and Content of the Magazine

People gave a mixed and confusing reply on whether they are interested to purchase or read a Bangladeshi music-based magazine. Only 54% of the people are willing to purchase the magazine, whereas 19% are not sure whether they want to or not. The reason behind this may be our people's less idea about a music-based magazine. Though there are many news, information, sports and entertainment based magazines, and also some fashion, literature and sports based ones, there is no existing magazine in the

market based on music only. Even not much of the international music magazines are available in the market. So this less-exposure to a music-magazine made the people confused about its content and quality.

Of course there are people, who age from 22 to above, who still remember and cherish the memories of "Rock n Rhythm" - the only music-based magazine that ever appeared in the Bangladeshi magazine market. This magazine was published by the music company Rainbow of Dhaka, and was very, very popular among the youths of `80s. But as the magazine was very much Dhaka-based, and its content was very much alien to the non-English listeners, the magazine had to give up. We feel that if "Rock n Rhythm" had contents of diverse interests like Bangla, English, Hindi and Instrumentals - with something to offer to everybody, and had a better plan to market it all over the country, it could have survived even today.

So obviously launching a magazine covering only music will be a risky proposition. But we have learnt from the faults of our earlier one, and we hope and believe to deliver better product. About the content of the magazine, we would like to offer various subjects of different interests. There will be information and news on all the happenings in the music field from all over the world, gossips of music celebrities, interviews of local and

international music sensations, lyrics and chords of popular songs, instrumental tutorials, tutorials on learning and practicing music advised by renowned artists. The magazine will also notify about the updated information of upcoming musical events and concerts, reviews of latest albums, informative history of musical personalities, instruments and raagas, music trivia and more. The contents will cover the music industry of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, UK, and USA - all the music that matters to our people. It will also have monthly top charts of most popular albums and songs from the music world.

What