News of Emap's new launch, codenamed Operation Tyson, has been filtering out over the last few weeks and it is expected that the new celebrity-orientated weekly men's title will launch before the end of the year.
Emap is also reported to have attempted to poach another IPC journalist in new Loaded editor Martin Daubney to assist former Sky editor Michael Hogan, who is working on the Emap Elan project.
With its own weekly men's title believed to be in the pipeline, the loss of Merrill is a blow to IPC. He leaves Chat, IPC's fastest-growing weekly title, after two-and-a-half years in the job as the magazine gains on its rival Take a Break. In the most recent set of ABC figures for January to June Chat reported sales of 575,585 a year on year increase of 11.8%.
It is expected that the new magazine will be backed by an £8m campaign targeting readers of men's monthly magazines such as FHM.
With no existing men's weekly entertainment magazine on the shelves, a successful launch could open up a whole new market.
The title would join Emap's growing stable of weekly entertainment titles built around Closer and Heat, which have both been strong performers for the publisher.
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