IPC Media takes axe to six titles

IPC Media closes six titles, closes its exhibitions business IPC Live! and makes 115 redundant

IPC Media has axed six magazine titles and closed its events and exhibitions business, IPC Live!, in a move that has triggered 115 redundancies.

As predicted exclusively in Marketing Week, one of the magazine titles to be axed is Woman’s Journal – one of IPC’s longest running titles – which IPC subsequently denied (MW June 14 ).

Your Life, the magazine aimed at 35-plus women launched on April 24, has been shut down with immediate effect. IPC Connect’s new title was unveiled following the closure of its weekly magazine Woman’s Realm, which was merged into sister title Woman’s Weekly (MW April 19).

The other axed titles include IPC Southbank’s Your Garden, Home & Ideas and Marie Claire Health & Beauty. Marie Claire Health & Beauty, the Marie Claire spin-off, recently reverted from monthly to bi-monthly frequency in the face of tough market conditions (MW July 19).

The Practical Parenting’s Complete Guide to Pregnancy title will now cease as a standalone publication and be merged into its parent magazine, Practical Parenting.

The closure of the magazines follows the acquisition of IPC Media by Time Inc, a unit of AOL Time Warner, last month.

IPC Media chief executive Sly Bailey says: “We have looked at all of the options for each of these businesses including the opportunities afforded to us now that we are part of the AOL Time Warner family.

“Although always a tough decision to take, this is the only sensible commercial course of action available to us. We must continue to focus our investment and resource on the key brands which drive profit growth. This necessarily entails closing loss-making titles which cannot be returned to profitability.”

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