What is the market for Jewish music Mag?

[GAronoff <GAronoff...>]

Robert raises an interesting question regarding a print Jewish music 
magazine.  Should it seek to be mass market or should it focus on the much 
more limitted market of musicians who play, and organizations/companies that 
promote, Jewish music?

To some extent this is a marketing question.  If we want to create a broader 
audience for Jewish music, we need to grab people with something they 
recognize or something that will catch their attention.  This argues for 
including celebrity profiles even if they may be secondary to core Jewish 
music.  Barbara Streisand, the Beastie Boys, Dylan, etc would help sell 
magazines in a store like Borders.  These features need not be total fluff, 
but could involve serious discussions with popular artists on their Jewish 
backgrounds and the impact of their Jewishness on their music. 

However, every piece on Kenny G's Jewish heritage takes away space from the 
coverage of new liturgical music, traditional Klezmer, etc.  Also, these 
pieces open up the danger of diluting people's definition of Jewish music to 
a point where the music becomes an ethnic name game.  So, a nice small niche 
publication might, as Robert says, be a better starting point rather than 
seeking to expand.

My question for the list is has anyone tried to estimate how small a niche we 
really are discussing?  Is it large enough to support this type of print 
publication?  I have some doubts if the examples of Davka or Pakn Treger 
(both Jewish niche publications) are any indication.  Davka has become the 
webzine Tattoo Jew and I am not sure what is happening with Pakn Treger since 
it hasn't made it to Washington DC recently.

Gideon

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