IPC Unveils Women’s Online Lifestyle Portal

IPC Media has launched a new online women’s lifestyle portal called Goodtoknow.co.uk, which will act as the central portal of IPC Connect’s weekly titles Pick Me Up, Woman’s Weekly, Now and Woman’s Own.

The launch of the site, which is being edited by June Smith Sheppard, follows the launch of IPC’s home portal housetohome.co.uk in May (see IPC Unveils New Homes Portal).

The new site offers advice and tips on health, diets and food. The health section offers advice on medical conditions sourced via www.patient.co.uk, whilst the diet section includes stories on diet trends and exercise advice.

The food section will contain a searchable database of recipes that have previously been published in IPC’s print titles.

According to a publisher statement from IPC Media, the Now website had 85,000 unique users in March this year.

The print titles Pick Me Up, Woman’s Weekly, Now and Woman’s Own have all suffered declining circulations according to recent ABC figures.

At the last ABCs, Pick Me Up was the hardest hit of the four titles, with a year on year circulation decline of around 67,200 (see ABC Results Jul-Dec 2006:Take A Break Leads Women’s Weekly Market).

The women’s weekly magazine market was shown to be quite volatile in the last ABC consumer magazine release, with sharp declines for some titles contrasting with increases in circulation for the more celebrity focused magazines.

Emap recently announced that its fortnightly title More will become a weekly magazine from September, in a move reportedly intended to counter the threat of readers defecting to IPC’s Look (see Emap Puts More Into Women’s Weekly Market).

Look which launched at the start of the year, has not yet released an ABC figure, although it is said to be selling well following a massive marketing push.

In May, H Bauer’s women’s weekly In The Know closed after less than a year on the newsstand following poor sales (see In The Know Folds After Less Than A Year).

Next Thursday sees the latest consumer magazine ABC release, with NewsLine providing analysis of the major sectors over the past six months.

IPC Media: 0870 4445000 www.ipcmedia.com