IPC media are one of the biggest publishing companies in the UK, printing over 60 well known magazines to the public including NME and Shooting Gazette to name a few. With these magazines alone they reach two thirds of Women in the UK and 42% of males while reaching collectively 20 million users on their websites every month. 
These figures are hugely successful due to focusing on three core audiences: men, mass market women and upmarket women. The area that focuses on men is also known as IPC inspire focuses on leisure brands such as Horse & Hound, Decanter and Rugby world. On top of this they also focus on lifestyle brands for men such as Nuts and NME.
The mass market women area (IPC connect) includes famous weekly magazines such as Look, Now and Woman and it also looks into TV entertainment brands such as What’s on TV and TV & Satellite week, online it also handles the goodtoknow network which focuses on advice and lifestyle tips for a busy mum including healthy recipes and relationship advice.
IPC Southbank focuses on the third and final core audience of upmarket women which looks into fashion brands such as Marie Claire and In Style; it also looks at home interest brands including ideal home and housetohome. All of these target audiences shows just how many people IPC focus on and how women are a bigger area of IPC than men, it also highlights the class differences in woman that media companies have to focus on to get better results.
The company was founded in 1963 due to a series of take overs, at this time there were a handful of companies fighting within a highly competitive market. The four main companies were Associated Newspapers (founded in 1890), Odhams Press ltd, George Newnes Publishers, C. Arthur Pearson and Hulton Press. After being appointed chairman to the newspaper company which included the Daily Mirror and The Sunday Mirror Cecil King decided to make an offer for Associated press and after being successful he changed the name too Fleetway Publications Ltd. After this Odhams Press bought both George News and the Hulton Press this was a good opportunity for King too make a bit for Odhams so that the overcrowded womens magazine market could be rationalised. In 1961 Fleetway successfully took over Odhams and was not controlling two national daily newspapers, two national Sunday newspapers and one hundred consumer magazines and over two hundred trade and technical periodicals. All of these companies taken over together meant that they would be run as subsidiaries under the parent company as the International Publishing Corporation.
Shortly after IPC reorganised into 6 groups to handle each area of media they currently had control over. These groups are:
<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->IPC Newspapers — including The People and The Daily Herald
<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->IPC Magazines — consumer magazines and comics
<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->IPC Trade and Technical — specialist magazines
<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->IPC Books — all book publishing
<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->IPC Printing — all non-newspaper printing operations
<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->IPC New Products — launching pad for products which used new technology
Towards the end of the 60s/ beginning of the 70s IPC was taken over by Reed International due to the manager at the time Hugh Cudlipp feeling uneasy with his role and IPC’s change into computerisation and new technology he decided to sell the company to Reed International. Part of Reed and IPC’s publishing formed into IPC Magazines Ltd and Mirror Group Newspaper however Mirror Group Newspaper was sold in 1984 to Pergamon Holdings Ltd. The comic area of IPC magazines was later sold in 1987 to Pergamon Holdings.
In 1990 IPC launched a magazine called "Loaded" which was aimed at men in their late 20's, these magazines usually involved non-nude photography and bare-breasted photography (this one was seen more in British magazines) with articles about alcohol, sex, cars and women or models. Shortly after many publication companies followed and there was a trend of 'lads' magazines.
Technology during the 90's was a big movement for all publishing companies but IPC in particular used this to an advantage, in 1996 NME became the first major UK music title to get its own website which later went on to become Europe's most popular music website. During the 2000's IPC started to release new digital media brands such as housetohome, goodtoknow and shooting uk. These were unlike any other digital magazines before and were perfect for IPC by reaching a bigger target audience without spending millions of pounds on publishing and advertising. IPC also acquired Mousebreaker in Jun 2008, a free to play gaming website with over 200 online flash bashed games. This again hit another target audience and today it leads the free casual games sector in the UK.
IPC started the millennium by being bought by Time Inc in 2001 - one of the biggest magazine deals ever seen in the UK.- Time Inc is a subsidiary of the conglomerate Time Warner which allowed IPC to evolve further and to adapt to new technology developing without having any financial issues. After this deal a string of very expensive marketing investments were made. One example being the launch of LOOK in 2007, the first high street fashion and celebrity magazine, this was a joint effort with Groupe Marie Claire and was backed by an £18million investment, to this date this is IPC's biggest ever launch.
Technology during the 90's was a big movement for all publishing companies but IPC in particular used this to an advantage, in 1996 NME became the first major UK music title to get its own website which later went on to become Europe's most popular music website. During the 2000's IPC started to release new digital media brands such as housetohome, goodtoknow and shooting uk. These were unlike any other digital magazines before and were perfect for IPC by reaching a bigger target audience without spending millions of pounds on publishing and advertising. IPC also acquired Mousebreaker in Jun 2008, a free to play gaming website with over 200 online flash bashed games. This again hit another target audience and today it leads the free casual games sector in the UK.
IPC started the millennium by being bought by Time Inc in 2001 - one of the biggest magazine deals ever seen in the UK.- Time Inc is a subsidiary of the conglomerate Time Warner which allowed IPC to evolve further and to adapt to new technology developing without having any financial issues. After this deal a string of very expensive marketing investments were made. One example being the launch of LOOK in 2007, the first high street fashion and celebrity magazine, this was a joint effort with Groupe Marie Claire and was backed by an £18million investment, to this date this is IPC's biggest ever launch.
Overall this company would be a very good place to start considering on what company would publish my magazine, in my mind I feel it would be a alternative magazine which they do not have at the moment, I feel with a magazine like this they would have a strong competitor against Bauer's magazine such as Kerrang!
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