This document discusses the history and target audiences of magazines published by IPC Media, a major UK magazine publisher. It notes that IPC launched niche interest magazines in the 1800s and expanded to target women in the early 1900s. IPC continued launching hobby magazines and also targeted younger male audiences with NME in the 1950s. IPC has since expanded its target audiences to different genders, ethnicities, ages and social classes. The document also provides examples of genres IPC could publish new magazines in based on its past successes.

1. General questions about IPC

2.  In the early 1800s The Field was launched. A newspaper aimed at middle class,
educated males. In the late 1800s: Country Life, Horse & Hound, Amateur Photographer
and The Railway Magazine were launched targeting a similar audience. Also targeting a
niche market of people specifically interested in the genre but the magazines still hold a
newspaper format.
 As technology advances a wider variety of magazines are launched by IPC. In the early
1900s the first of IPC’s four traditional women’s weeklies: Women’s Weekly launched. By
1940 we had Woman & Home, Woman’s Own and Woman, they began to target a wider
reaching audience of females of a white, middle class background. These magazines
were cost effective as they were affordable for middle class women at the time.
 Alongside these in 1930 were magazines such as Caravan, Stamp Magazine and
Prediction which was the further continuation of hobby and special interest magazines
for the middle class.
 In the 1950s music magazine: New Musical Express (NME) attracted a younger target
audience than ever before who were white, middle class and predominately male. In
1955 following the arrival of ITV and the change in technology, TV Times published its
first issue.
 The release of Sport magazines in the 1960s were now targeting a much larger age
range of younger and older men.
 Since then IPC has continued to expand it’s target audience and reach out to different
genders, ethnicities, social classes and age groups.
 In 2000 IPC Magazines is renamed IPC Media and the success continues.

3.  It is a well known corporation formed in 1963 made up of the
UK’s three leading magazine publishers
 IPC has published a number of successful magazines already.
 If IPC were to publish a new magazine they would be able to
reach out to all the main supermarkets and shops and
because of their previous success they would have no trouble
finding distributers.

4.  IPC have previously published NME music magazine so are
likely to publish other Rock/Indie magazines because they
already have the knowledge of this music genre and skills to
make it successful
 Alternatively IPC could reach out into a music genre such as
Pop because this is popular music amongst young people
today so a Pop magazine is likely to be successful.

5.  Bauer media is Europe’s largest privately owned publishing Group it is a
worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries,
as well as online, TV and radio stations. Today, Bauer Media spans over
80 influential brand names covering a diverse range of interests
including Heat, Parkers, MATCH!, CAR and Yours
 The company have been successful in their radio business beginning in
1990 with the acquisition of London dance station Kiss FM (now called
Kiss 100), followed by Liverpool's Radio City and later by TWC and the
Metro Group. Then came the acquisition of Melody FM which was
transformed into the market-leading Magic 105.4.
 In 1996, they acquired digital music TV channel The Box, as a route into
the small screen business, which has grown into Box Television, a seven
channel joint venture TV business with Channel 4.
 Bauer has an extremely successful background which has been closely
linked to the music industry. They would be an appropriate publisher for
a new music magazine because they have the knowledge of music
combined with their success and good reputation in the industry.