Magazine publisher IPC Southbank is selling its Practical Parenting title to online communities publisher Magicalia, saying it is “regrettably, no longer a strategic fit”. Founded in 1999, Magicalia runs several of its own community/editorial sites, including ThinkBaby and SheCycles, and also operates sites on behalf of magazine publishers including NatMags and Future. Magicalia recently bought Junior, Junior Pregnancy & Baby and Pregnancy, Baby & You from Future – the latest acquisition will fit along with them, as well as with ThinkBaby, IPC’s release says.
But Magicalia MD Jeremy Tapp told Journalism.co.uk it has more to do with building offline presence: “If you’re not developing a really compelling web offering to go along side your magazine, that would be laughable. But it’s equally laughable to think that an online-only attack on the parenting sector is good enough, because there’s still going to be plenty of print output for the next 10 or 20 years.” The strategy is to ally web-based communities with print brands so that readers’ knowledge can lead the magazine, Tapp said. Practical Parenting clocked up 38,945 print readers between January and June 2007 (ABC figs).