IPC Media a wholly owned subsidiary of
Time Inc.Time Inc. is a subsidiary of the media conglomerate Time Warner, the company formed by the 1990 merger of the original Time Inc. and Warner Communications. It publishes 130 magazines, most notably its namesake, Time...
, is a consumer
magazineMagazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
and digital publisher in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, with a large portfolio selling over 350 million copies each year.
Origins
The British magazine publishing industry in the mid-1950s was dominated by a handful of companies, principally the
Associated NewspapersAssociated Newspapers is a large national newspaper publisher in the UK, which is a subsidiary of the Daily Mail and General Trust. The group was established in 1905 and is currently based at Northcliffe House in Kensington...
(founded by
Lord HarmsworthAlfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe rose from childhood poverty to become a powerful British newspaper and publishing magnate, famed for buying stolid, unprofitable newspapers and transforming them to make them lively and entertaining for the mass market.His company...
in 1890),
Odhams Press LtdOdhams Press was a British publishing firm. Originally a newspaper group, founded in 1890, it took the name Odham's Press Ltd in 1920 when it merged with John Bull magazine. By 1937 it had founded the first colour weekly, Woman, for which it set up and operated a dedicated high-speed print works...
,
George Newnes PublishersSir George Newnes, 1st Baronet was a publisher and editor in England.-Background and education:...
, C. Arthur Pearson, and the Hulton Press, which fought each other for market share in a highly competitive marketplace.
Fleetway
In 1958
Cecil Harmsworth KingCecil Harmsworth King was owner of Mirror Group Newspapers, and later a director at the Bank of England .He came on his father's side from a Protestant Irish family, and was brought up in Ireland...
, chairman of a newspaper group which included the
Daily Mirror and the
Sunday Pictorial (now the
Sunday MirrorThe Sunday Mirror is the Sunday sister paper of the Daily Mirror. It began life in 1915 as the Sunday Pictorial and was renamed the Sunday Mirror in 1963. Trinity Mirror also owns The People...
), together with provincial chain West of England Newspapers, made an offer for Associated Press. The offer was accepted, and in January 1959 he was appointed its chairman. Within a few months he changed its name to
Fleetway Publications, Ltd. after the name of its headquarters, Fleetway House in London's Farringdon Street.
Shortly thereafter, Odhams Press absorbed both George Newnes and the Hulton Press. King saw an opportunity in this to rationalise the overcrowded women's magazine market, in which Fleetway and Newnes were the major competitors, and made a bid for Odhams on behalf of Fleetway that was too attractive to ignore. Fleetway took over Odhams in March 1961.
International Publishing Corporation
In consequence, King controlled publishing interests which included two national daily and two national Sunday newspapers (the newspaper interests being informally tagged
The Mirror Group), along with almost one hundred consumer magazines, more than two hundred trade and technical periodicals, and various book publishing interests. This included the combined business interests of Fleetway, Odhams, and Newnes.
All of the companies involved had been acquired without any significant change in management, save for the appointment of Mirror Group directors as chairmen. In 1963 all the companies were combined by the creation of a parent (or "holding") company called the
International Publishing Corporation (known informally as
IPC). All of the existing companies would continue to exist, but as IPC subsidiaries.
Reorganization
IPC then set up a management development department in 1965, to rationalise its holdings, so that its various subsidiaries would no longer be in competition with each other for the same markets. This led to a reorganisation of the Group, in 1968, into six divisions:
- IPC Newspapers — including The People
The People, previously known as the Sunday People, is a British tabloid Sunday-only newspaper. The paper was founded on 16 October 1881.It is published by the Trinity Mirror Group.In July 2011 it had an average daily circulation of 806,544....
and The Daily Herald from Odhams, as well as the Daily Mirror and Sunday Pictorial
- IPC Magazines — consumer magazines and comics
- IPC Trade and Technical — specialist magazines (later known as IPC Business Press Ltd.)
- IPC Books — all book publishing (headed by Paul Hamlyn
Paul Hamlyn, Baron Hamlyn of Edgeworth, CBE , was a German-born British publisher and philanthropist.-Family:...
, whose own company had been acquired by IPC).
- IPC Printing — all non-newspaper printing operations (headed by Arnold Quick, whose own company had also been acquired by IPC).
- IPC New Products — launching pad for products which used new technology (headed by Alistair McIntosh).
All the divisions were headed by chairmen who originated in Mirror Group, except for Hamlyn, Quick and McIntosh.
Also in 1968, a boardroom coup replaced Cecil King with his deputy chairman,
Hugh CudlippHubert "Hugh" Kinsman Cudlipp, Baron Cudlipp, OBE , was a Welsh journalist and newspaper editor noted for his work on the Daily Mirror in the 1950s and 60s.- Life and career :...
, a former newspaper editor.
Reed International takeover
Cudlipp had no interest in management, and was uneasy both with his new role and with IPC's diversification into computerised publication and other new technology. In 1969 he therefore proposed to former Mirror Group director Don Ryder, who was then chairman of the Reed Group, in which IPC had a 30% shareholding, to mount a reverse take-over of IPC by Reed.
IPC-Mirror Group was thus itself taken over in 1970, by the paper-making company Albert E Reed, which then renamed itself Reed International. In 1974, part of the publishing interests of Reed International were separated into
IPC Magazines Ltd (comprising the magazine and comics holdings) and Mirror Group Newspapers (comprising the newspaper holdings). The latter was sold to Pergamon Holdings Ltd, a private company owned by
Robert MaxwellIan Robert Maxwell MC was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament , who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire...
, in 1984.
In the early 1990s IPC launched
LoadedLoaded, first published in 1994, is a British magazine for men that is considered to be the "original lads' mag". Its motto is "For men who should know better".-History:...
, which began a wave of "lad's mags".
In 1992, following a merger with Dutch science publisher
Elsevier NVElsevier is a publishing company which publishes medical and scientific literature. It is a part of the Reed Elsevier group. Based in Amsterdam, the company has operations in the United Kingdom, USA and elsewhere....
, Reed International underwent a further name change, becoming
Reed ElsevierReed Elsevier is a publisher and information provider operating in the science, medical, legal, risk and business sectors. It is listed on several of the world's major stock exchanges. It is a FTSE 100 and FT500 Global company...
.
Sale of Fleetway
In 1987, part of the comics holdings of IPC Magazines Ltd (comprising those comics and characters created after 1 January 1970, plus 26 specified characters from
Buster, which was then still being published) were placed in a separate company,
Fleetway PublicationsFleetway, also known as Fleetway Publications and Fleetway Editions, was a UK publishing company which mainly produced comic magazines. For a time owned by IPC Media, they are now a division of Egmont Publishing....
, which was sold to Pergamon Holdings.
In 1991, Egmont UK purchased Fleetway from Pergamon, merging it with their own comics publishing operation, London Editions, to form
Fleetway Editions. The latter was absorbed into the main Egmont brand by 2000, having sold off the continuing titles (such as
2000 AD), and continued with only reprint and licensed titles (e.g.
Sonic The ComicSonic the Comic, known to its many readers as STC, was a UK children's comic published fortnightly by Fleetway Editions between 1993 and 2002...
). IPC had retained the other comics characters and titles, i.e. those created before 1970 (except the 26 characters from
Buster), including
Sexton BlakeSexton Blake is a fictional detective who appeared in many British comic strips and novels throughout the 20th century. He was described by Professor Jeffrey Richards on the BBC in The Radio Detectives in 2003 as "the poor man's Sherlock Holmes"...
,
The Steel ClawThe Steel Claw was one of the most popular comic book heroes of British weekly adventure comics of the 1960s and 1970s. The character was revived in 2005 for Albion, a six issue mini-series published by the Wildstorm imprint of DC Comics....
, and Battler Britton One character,
Dan DareDan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories, that is, the Venus and Red Moon stories, and a complete storyline for Operation Saturn...
, was sold separately and is currently owned by the Dan Dare Corporation.
Time Inc. takeover
In 1998 IPC Magazines Ltd was subject to a
management buyoutA management buyout is a form of acquisition where a company's existing managers acquire a large part or all of the company.- Overview :Management buyouts are similar in all major legal aspects to any other acquisition of a company...
financed by
CinvenCinven is a British private equity firm founded in 1977 with offices in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan and Hong Kong. Currently, the company has raised four funds, with the last one signing up €6.5 billion...
, a
venture capitalVenture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
group, and the company was renamed IPC Media. Cinven then sold the company to
Time Inc.Time Inc. is a subsidiary of the media conglomerate Time Warner, the company formed by the 1990 merger of the original Time Inc. and Warner Communications. It publishes 130 magazines, most notably its namesake, Time...
, the magazine publishing subsidiary of
Time WarnerTime Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
, in 2001. In January 2009 the company's chief executive became Evelyn Webster, replacing Sylvia Auton who had run it since 2001.
Current Publishing Divisions
IPC Media groups its current titles under three magazine divisions each focusing on a core audience.
- Connect — mass market women
- SouthBank — upmarket women
- Inspire — men
External links