This company, originally called IPC Magazines, was formed in 1966. However, prior to this time the company was in development from 1799 as it came to existence through the merging of other major magazine publishers such as Oldhams Press and the Mirror Group.
IPC Media is a Time Warner Company based in London with more than 60 iconic media brands. They have three publishing divisions:
- IPC Connect - Their mass market women's division (e.g. Now & Chat)
- IPC Inspire - Their men's portfolio (e.g. Rugby World & Country Life)
- IPC Southbank - Their upmarket women's division (e.g. Marie Claire & Ideal Home)
As well as this, in 1952, they launched New Musical Express (NME) which gained its own website in the 1990s. With this being such a popular and widely known music magazine I should therefore consider using IPC Media as the publisher for the music magazine I create in my main task.
More recently, in January 2010, IPC Media restructured their focus to three target audiences: men, mass-market women and up-market women.
Due to this, it is possible that this publishing company may not be suitable for my magazine as my target audience is teenagers to young adults, both male and female.
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National Magazine Company Ltd was established in 1910 by William Randolph Hearst under the trading name Hearst Magazines UK.
This company publishes 20 consumer titles within the UK such as: Cosmopolitan, ELLE and Reveal. As these magazines have a focus on fashion or celebrity gossip this leads me to believe that Hearst Magazines UK would be a suitable publisher for my own magazine as I want to focus on artists who's fashion sets them apart from the rest and the inclusion of interviews is similar to 'celebrity gossip'. However, although the three previously mentioned magazines appear to steer towards a female audience, I do not believe this would be a problem if I chose this company as my publishing company. This is because I presume more females would be interested in my own magazine however I would like to try and remain impartial and cater for both genders.
Furthermore, Hearst Magazines UK also has many digital assets and I believe this is vitally important when choosing the publisher for my main task as I feel as though it would be necessary for my magazine to have a website, or even an App. This is because my target audience (teenagers to young adults) are very well educated in the digital world and almost all own smartphones. Due to this, this company would be a very good choice as all of their websites are optimised for the smartphones that their audience carry and in 2012 Good Housekeeping launched an iPad App.
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In 1973 Felix Dennis and Dick Pountain attempted to set up a company as underground-comix publishers which unfortunately fell through and left them bankrupt. Then, inspired by Bruce Lee, they saw the opportunity to bring out Kung-Fu Monthly in 1974. From there they began to launch and buy other magazines and their company really took off.
Now, Dennis publishes over 70 magazines, digital magazines, websites and mobile sites throughout the world (e.g. The Week, Monkey, Auto Express and Men's Fitness).
Furthermore, Dennis Publishing released the first magazine App, iGizmo, which became the number one download in Apple's store. It is important to me that this company can create, advertise and sell Apps as this is something that would definitely appeal to the target audience of my magazine.
On top of this, it is clearly very successful as every year it posts over 25 million subscription copies to customers and someone buys a Dennis Publishing magazine from the newsstand every 2 seconds. It is crucial that the company I use could guarantee sales and therefore in that sense this company appears suitable.
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My Magazine
After researching 3 different UK publishing companies I have found pros and cons to each. However, I have decided upon Hearst Magazines UK. I came to this conclusion as many of the magazines this company publishes I read myself, and therefore I know they are suitable for my target audience. As well as this, although the main focus of my magazine will be music, I want to include fashion and interviews which I know many of these magazines, such as Reveal, do. Furthermore, I would like to launch a website and iPhone App for my website as teenagers to young adults spent a lot of time on their laptops, iPads and smartphones. This company has launched an App in the past and also ensures that their websites function on smartphones as well as computers and laptops and consequently I feel as though Hearst Magazines UK would be the best publisher for my main task.
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