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Online specialist publisher Magicalia buys print title from IPC Media

Cross-media publisher Magicalia is to purchase IPC Media's Practical Parenting magazine.

The sale, which will be completed by the end of January, is the latest in a series of print acquisitions by Magicalia, as the specialist interest publisher expands its offline portfolio.

Having previously concentrated on niche online, with a range of 45 websites, Magicalia has been moving into the print sector with a series of purchases steadily pulling it into more mainstream areas.

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk, Magicalia joint managing director Jeremy Tapp said the online titles owned by the publisher that were backed by a magazine had shown faster growth than those that were online-only.

"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," Mr Tapp said.

The publisher was 'definitely interested' in buying more print titles, he added, and remained undaunted by concerns over the future of the printed press.

"Rumours of the death of the print press are overstated, but that's not to say that they're not going to go through tremendous pain and restructuring.

"For smaller magazines [those with 15k-30k circulation], their distribution channel is getting squeezed, because of a reduction in range by stockists and retailers.

"Magicalia's only option is to reshape such titles so they have more dependence on subscriptions than on the news trade and to drive that using the web community by letting the knowledge of our readers lead the magazine."

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