View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

  1. Archive content
August 5, 2004updated 22 Nov 2022 11:53am

Ice ire as freelances lose out on payments

By Press Gazette

Ice: new owners, old creditors

Freelance journalists have been left unpaid after Select Media, publishers of men’s magazine Ice, went into liquidation just two weeks after selling off the title.

Photographer James Rudland claimed he is owed £7,500 and another photographer, Jens Wikholm, said he is owed about £4,000. Wikholm also claimed he will have to use his own cash to pay model agencies for work undertaken for Ice.

Ice editor Darren Halford said: “I feel responsible to our contributors. I was a freelance for three years and I know how important it is to get paid on time. I am disgusted with the way our contributors have been treated by the magazine’s previous owner.”

Select Media’s former owner, James Kimber, refused to comment when contacted by Press Gazette.

Select Media is also understood to owe printers, baggers and other creditors.

Content from our partners
MHP Group's 30 To Watch awards for young journalists open for entries
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it

A creditors’ meeting is due to take place on 18 August to consider appointing a liquidator and to try to establish how much Kimber sold the company for.

Mark Ibbotson, managing director of Impress Envelopes, which printed and manufactured the magazine’s outer envelopes for the final two issues, said he has not been paid. He will attend the creditors’ meeting and told Press Gazette: “I would like to know how much James sold the magazine for and, if it was a substantial amount, where that money is.

“James will try to appoint one of his own liquidators and the rest of us will try to vote against it and get our own appointed.”

Ice was sold in July by Select Media to Alton Russell International, which also owns Into Soap magazine.

Halford added: “It is good that we have been bought by a bigger company because it will allow us to invest in better editorial, better design and better paper stock.

“The magazine is in really good health at the moment and our last ABC figures are our best yet, which has bucked the trend in the men’s magazine market.”

Ice is employing extra staff as part of the takeover, including a full-time picture editor, Adrian Callaghan, a fulltime designer, Jim Leaf, and a sub, who is yet to be appointed.

By Sarah Lagan

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network