1. 1.) What types of magazine and target audiences has IPC been associated with over the years?
Firstly, IPC stands for International Publishing Corporation. In the late 1800s, IPC associated
similar target audience, mostly people who are in upper class female and male. I get the
impression from the magazines they sell, such as:
-Horse & Hound
-Amateur Photographer
-Amateur Gardening
-Yachting World
-Shooting Times
All of these activities are quite expensive to do for example Yachting, not every family house
hold have one, nor do they have a hunting gun and a horse to kill some birds or animals on
the weekend. Doing photography, as a hobby is very expensive, gardening mostly targeted
at females. However, if they are housewives there aren’t free time like that, unless they
have maids or a housekeeper to do most of the work.
By 1900s, the type of magazines changed to something less high class, for male and female.
Magazine that become part of the IPC Media within those few years, were:
-Yachting Monthly
-Cage Birds
-Motor Boat
-Woman’s Weekly
-Golf Monthly
The Woman’s Weekly magazine is about food and knitting etc, Golf plus Yachting are there
quite similar to before, rather than Yachting World, it became Monthly, is it suggesting
people are more money saving, and Golf have always been a high class thing, but with
enough money up could join as club member. Over all the target audience for these
magazines, are for people who have lots of free time and money to do these activities.
Similar target audience of 1800s are more male activities than female. However more of
these things can be done unisex.
Going along with the period, in 1930s the Woman’s Own magazine was giving free gifts of
‘three skeins of wool’ at a low cost, in full colour. At wartime 1940s the IPC used the
influence of the war to design Woman’s Own covers to give out valuable information, on
behalf of the Government. Nowadays looking back at these covers we see them as a classic
piece of art work.
In the late 1980s, after IPC joined with three other rival magazine companies in 1960s, such
as: Newnes, Fleetway and Odhams. The types of magazine have changed dramatically over
150 years give or take a bit, IPC used to just be sporty activities, that are very high class. Now
it has become something very different. There are magazines like:
- 4x4 (Cars)
-Mizz
-Chat
-Motor Caravan Magazine

2. -Wedding & Home
-Country Homes & Interiors
-Practical Parenting
-Bird Keeper
All of these magazine topics come from all areas of life, they is something for everyone to
read, for creative people, people who like engineering, even young people and young adults
Mizz and Chat are more of a gossip magazine. It shows they now are aiming at a wider
audience, not just people who like sports and gardening, bird watching.
2.) Why might IPC be an appropriate publisher for a new music magazine? What sorts of genres
of music/types of magazines might they be likely to publish? Why might alternative
publishers like Bauer be appropriate?
I will be answering this question in three parts, commenting and giving sound reasons.
First question, why IPC would be appropriate it is because in 1950s the company buyout
New Musical Express, are publishing from that day on. They buyout it because was the
upsurge in 1952 and everyone loved reading it, seeing such an effect on society. Then IPC
quickly then buyout the company to make more profit alongside UNCUT music magazine.
The TV Times magazine are another effective way of advertisement, as they are a TV
industry they could gather the most up to date news and publishing it in TV Times magazine
where people can get all the new stars and programmes, reviews of these topic. They
already have audience that IPC would know, that would buy new music magazine, buying
this new music magazine would just give IPC readers a wider choice. That is why a new music
magazine would find IPC a suitable company for publishing. As they are so open to new
magazines, and they have enough money to buyout a company if it does well, from reviews
of feedback and the amount of buyers.
Secondly, as for what music/types genres IPC would likely to publish, well a NME and UNCUT
is an music magazine of rock and modern music and from time to time in UNCUT news of an
old artist. They only chose to do this genre of music, as they’re the top scale of the most
popular and well liked. They might want to try something new like hip-hop, metal, etc.
Nevertheless, having considered all types of music, like classic, rap. Well it seemed far fetch
and regular readers might be confused at who IPC’s target audience is. I doubt they’ll make
such an dramatic change to the type of music they’ll publish, as costumers may reject this
change and leave for another company’s magazine.
Thirdly, as a new music magazine they would have spent quite a lot of their amount on the
magazine itself. And they would go for a cheaper publisher, for instinct Bauer, even if it
means less profit. Comparing Bauer to IPC publisher, they sell printed titles 531,454 copies
every month, making it very expensive. On the other hand, Bauer magazines aren’t as well
known as IPC, making it a lot cheaper. However, Bauer might be a better publisher because
of the genre magazine they do, such as: music, woman’s group, entertainment (films), id
magazine, teen group.