Magazine Publishers Case Study

Magazine Publishers Case Study

IPC Media

IPC Media is the second most popular publishing company after Bauer Media and was founded in 1958, although in 1968 IPC Magazines was created when its parent company, International Publishing Corporation sectioned off the business into different areas. In 1998, IPC Magazines was brought by Cinven for £860 million and renamed IPC Media, which the company then sold IPC 3 years later to Time Inc whose parent company, Times Warner is the second largest media company in the world.

The company currently owns 66 titles from Country Life to Teen Now and Soaplife so it was split into 3 sections; IPC Connect for mass market women, IPC Inspire for men and IPC Southbank for upmarket women. With the company being as big as it is, it has a head office in London and various offices around the UK in Croydon, Manchester, Poole and Stamford which clearly shows how diverse the company is and how many levels it has to manage this many magazines.

The Magazines

With the business publishing 66 magazines, mostly weekly and monthly release titles means the business has a lot of work and the separation of the three different categories. IPC Connect caters for mass market women’s magazines which are publications such as Woman’s Own, Pick Me Up and Chat which feature celebrity gossip, real life stories and a selection of pieces such as recipes, fashion, advice columns and crosswords. The magazines in this group are read by 9.4 million women which are almost half of the entire audience for all mass market women’s magazines. Even in this section, it already has many different genres from Celebrity and Fashion, Lifestyle, Traditional, Real Life and TV/Entertainment. Celebrity and Fashion features magazines such as Now and Teen Now whereas Lifestyle includes Woman and Goodtoknow. Traditional is dedicated to Woman’s Weekly which has been running for over 100 years. The Real Life section features titles such as Pick Me Up and Chat and TV/Entertainment is the home to Whats on Tv and the TV Times.

 IPC Inspire, which caters for men magazines provides a range of topics for its broad audience. The sports magazines specialise in activities which aren’t found in newspapers such as shooting, equestrian, cycling and marine activities while also publishing magazines dedicated to Rugby, Football and Golf. It also publishes music and technology magazines such as NME, Uncut and Amateur Photographer in addition to Mens Lifestyles magazines like Nuts and Mousebreaker. Mens magazines from IPC Media are read by 42% of UK Men, which is a high proportion of male readers.

Within IPC Southbank, it houses magazines for upmarket women with sub-sections such as Fashion magazines such as Look and Marie Claire as well as Women’s Lifestyle such as women&home and Essentials. A big part of Southbank’s magazines for women is Home Interest such as Ideal Home and Style At Home. Although it has a smaller readership than mass market women, due to be aimed at the middle classes instead of the working class it still has a readership base of over 10 million.

The Typical Reader

IPC has a range of typical readers because within the three categories of magazines, they all include many sub-sections which appeal to a range of different audiences. IPC Connect is aimed at working class women, who are probably around 30 to 50 years old. IPC Inspire is mainly targeted at younger, middle class men although there are certain magazines such as Country Life which is for a more mature audience and NME which is for a more working class audience. IPC Southbank has the clearest typical readership as the magazines are mainly for middle aged, middle class women by the reflection of the Home and Lifestyle magazines.

Website

IPC’s website is surprisingly very similar to The Chelsea Magazine Company’s website with its blue and white colour scheme and use of white space which help accentuate the vibrancy of the photos. At the top of the website, it has a slideshow looped to show the many magazines it offers such as model to represent Marie Claire and a man playing golf to advertise Golf Monthly. It also has a small introduction to the media company next to it, much like the Chelsea Company and a small section of news which links with a bigger news page.

The Chelsea Magazine Company

The Chelsea Magazine Company is an independent publishing company which owns 8 specialised magazines. With a head office in Chelsea, London and a US base in Seneca, North Carolina they are considerably smaller than IPC Media which has 5 bases around the UK. The company was founded in 2007 and is becoming increasingly successful, notably after buying ‘Classic Boat’ magazine from IPC in 2010 and is also becoming a competitor within online by making digital editions for iPads and computers of their magazines.

The Magazines

The company is in charge of 8 magazines, which all are specialised in a hobby or sport. Artists and Illustrators is a magazine dedicated to art and artists who are interested in showcasing their talents as well as learning new tips. It also reports on artist news, exhibitions and competitions in which the reader can win money and art materials.

The Britain magazine specialises in the history and culture of the country in addition to reporting on topics such as the Royal family and advertising tourist information, such as places to stay around the country and the many tourist attractions the country has to offer.

Another magazine the company publishes is Independent School Parent which acts as a guide for parents who are interested in or already do send their children to a private school. It gives information for both students and parents on schools suitable for all ages up to universities

The Race car Engineering magazine is a specialised publication for car enthusiasts who are looking to gain more knowledge on the subject, read news on recent events within the field and has interviews from important people from popular events such as F1.

Its other four magazines focus on water activities, including; Classic Boat, Cruise International, Sailing Today and Yachts & Yachting. While Classic Boat features mainly photos of the different types of boats and sailing equipment, it has an estimated 13,000 circulation figure which is surprisingly high considering the topic. Cruise International is sold in travel agents as well as magazine retailers, such as WHSmiths and is published 6 times within the year. The content features news and destination information from various ships around the world. Sailing Today and Yachts & Yachting both focus around freetime and competitive sailing and various news to do with the topic.

The Typical Reader

The typical readership of the types of magazine that Chelsea Magazine Company publish is male, middle aged and middle class as the topics are quite male dominated, although you could say that the private school and art magazine are dedicated to the women readership. Hobbies like sailing are seen to be quite middle class as boats and the equipment needed are quite expensive so they would need a good income to also maintain the boats and make sure they are in good condition. The majority of children who go to private school are also middle class so that strengthens the argument that these magazines are not suitable for the working class. I would estimate the targeted readership for most of these magazines from 30 to 55 years old as they have more time to spend on their hobbies rather than careers or young children but are still physically fit enough to sail, travel or drive.

Website

The company’s website has a number of ways in which you can buy the products by having a page dedicated to their online shop where you can buy the magazines, a subscription area for a specific magazine as well as a digital subscription area. The website also has a news section in which it reports on a number of stories from awards and events of the magazines plus special editions of any of the magazines.

It has a clean and ordered layout and sticks to a simple colour scheme of blue and white, so that it looks professional. The homepage does have a lot of white space which makes it seem like it has been thought of when arranging the layout and also makes the images stand out more due to the bright colours and photos. The look and feel of the website does suit the readership of the magazine and is easy to navigate which may make it easier for some of the older readers.