IPC name to disappear as Time Inc rebrands magazine publisher

IPC Media, publisher of magazines including Marie Claire, NME and What’s on TV, is to be rebranded by its US-based owner to Time Inc UK.

Marcus Rich, chief executive of the newly-anointed Time Inc UK, said the company was “proud of what we have achieved at IPC over many years” but said the rebrand would provide “strategic clarity” and open up “new opportunities”.

The rebrand of Time Inc’s UK subsidiary comes three months after the US magazine publisher was spun off from Time Warner.

The IPC brand dates back to the 1963 when the International Publishing Corporation was created as a holding company for the Mirror newspaper group and a number of the UK’s biggest magazine publishers.

IPC Magazines was created five years later, with the business bought by Reed International in 1974.

The publisher was rebranded IPC Media in 1998, following a management buyout from Reed backed by venture capital firm Cinven. IPC was bought by Time Inc, the publishing subsidiary of Time Warner, in 2001.

Joe Ripp, chairman and chief executive of Time Inc, said the switch would “help us better leverage our global portfolio … and foster greater collaboration throughout the organisation”.

The IPC Media brand has already been removed from the publisher’s website, with the name relegated to a footnote on the publisher’s new homepage.

Other Time Inc UK (previously IPC) magazines including Wallpaper, Woman, Countrylife, Horse and Hound and Livingetc. It closed its weekly men’s magazine, Nuts, after 10 years earlier this year.

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