Department of Sport Journilism and Communication,Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education,Guangzhou,China
Introduction :Sports is one of important content and resources of reporting in the media which is,at the same time,one of the most active elements of the social development system.Therefore,sports and media have always been closely linked with social development.During this process,the concept of professional sports media has gradually surfaced.Sport magazine is the oldest sports media.Nowadays the most influencial sports magazines in the whole world are mainly in European countries like Italy,France,Britain,Spain and Germany.Meanwhile,Chinese sports magazines developed rapidly and have had certain reputation in the globe.
This study took German and Chinese sports magazines as examples and tried to analyze the development strategies of sport magazines accompanying comparing the different strategies between China and Germany.It could provide a broader perspective and more useful suggestions to China’s sports magazines for further healthy development as the context of economic globalization.
Methods :Having selected some sport magazines from Germany and China with some similar characteristics such as having extensive industrialization,large circulation,great reputation and influence power,this study explored the history of sports magazines in China and Germany,market structure,content strategies(including editting strategies and product strategies),audience strategies(including audience-enthralling strategies and audience-exploiting strategies)and profit-gaining strategies(including advertising strategies and profit model renewing strategies)by applying some research methods such as documentation,interview,content analysis,case study,comparison and statistics.
Results :(1)Both the leading sport magazines in China and Germany occupied a middle-sized company scale in the magazine market;(2)Concentration,but without oligarch,appeared in the market of sport magazines in China and Germany,and it has established a market structure with two or three large leading companies;(3)Similarities of content strategies(including editting strategies and product strategies),audience strategies(including audience-enthralling strategies and audience-exploiting strategies)and profit-gaining strategies(including advertising strategies and profit model renewing strategies)between Chinese and German sport magazines are potentialized,however,the gaps between them are still great;(4)Chinese sports magazines can learn a lot from Germany to formulate strategy system.Meanwhile they can provide some beneficial ideas for the globlization strategy of German sports magazines.
Discussion/ Conclusion :(1)With the coming Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games,Universiade 2011 Shenzhen,and Nanjing 2014 Summer World Youth Olympic Games,etc,China has entered the era of intensive competition after the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.Under this circumstances,Chinese sport magazines should establish a stereo-perceptioned strategy system including macroscopical,microscopical and different stage strategies;(2)While sports is relatively far away from politics and ideology,Chinese sports magazines could,to a large extent,operate from the point of competition in the market.They can strengthen itself by borrowing some successful experience of media competition strategies from developed countries like Germany.