IPC to take control of What Digital Camera

What Digital Camera: on the move

Photography magazine What Digital Camera is to lose its editor and three members of staff following a decision to move the title in-house under the control of IPC Media.

The magazine has been produced under contract by S2 Creative Solutions since its launch in 1997, but was acquired by IPC in 1999 as part of the Link House portfolio.

At the time, staff chose not to become employees of IPC but to continue to write and produce the title from a separate office in Charing Cross.

Since the AOL Time Warner takeover of IPC, however, there is believed to have been increasing pressure to bring editorial in-house and under the control of IPC. Editor Simon Joinson said staff were offered jobs with IPC but they turned them down.

Those affected include deputy editor Gavin Stoker, technical editor Doug Harman and sub-editor Stephanie Krahn. Joinson, who launched the title and is a director of S2 Creative Solutions, said: "It is an unusual circumstance. We have not fallen out with IPC; it is simply that during contract negotiations we made a business decision to stop supplying IPC with our services. Having built WDC up from nothing to its current market-leader status, I am of course sad that we will no longer be involved in the title. But we now have to move on and develop our business for the benefit of all our employees – all of whom were offered the opportunity to work for IPC, but declined."

What Digital Camera reported a recent ABC of 24,938, a 51 per cent increase on its sales the previous year. IPC is now in the process of recruiting a new team.

The last issue with the current staff is due to hit news-stands in September, but all four are expected to stay on with S2 Creative Solutions to work on forthcoming projects.

A source said: "The IPC thing was never going to be perfect; it was never going to be easy because IPC didn’t have editorial control."

By Ruth Addicott