''Fairplay'' was a weekly

news magazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories, in greater depth than do newspapers or n ...

devoted to the international

merchant shipping Maritime transport (or ocean transport) and hydraulic effluvial transport, or more generally waterborne transport, is the transport of people ( passengers) or goods (cargo) via waterways. Freight transport by sea has been widely used thro ...

industry, delivering “content tailored for its core audience of ship owners, managers, operators and charterers.“ It was founded by Thomas Hope Robinson in 1883 and remained in continual publication until 2018. Since 2011, Fairplay's publishing company IHS Fairplay is a division of

IHS Markit IHS Markit Ltd was an information services provider that completed a merger with S&P Global in 2022. Headquartered in London, it was formed in 2016 with the merger of IHS Inc. and Markit Ltd. History IHS Information Handling Services (IHS) "wa ...

History

Startup and development

After Thomas Hope Robinson had lost his money at the stock exchange in 1883, he tried a new career as publisher by starting Fairplay weekly with borrowed money. His intention was to “speak out, loud and bold … for the shipowner, as an advocate, not a judge”. In the first issue he wrote: "There is so little

Fairplay FairPlay is a digital rights management (DRM) technology developed by Apple Inc. It is built into the MP4 multimedia file format as an encrypted AAC audio layer, and was used until April 2009 by the company to protect copyrighted works sold ...

in the world. If our own efforts succeed, we shall have taken the first steps towards promoting the habit of calling things by their right name and looking at them through uncoloured

spectacles Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are vision eyewear, with lenses (clear or tinted) mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms (known as temples o ...

." The enterprise was successful and soon increased in size and revenue. The publisher's son Gordon Hope Robinson (died 1953) took over in 1912 and Fairplay remained a family business until 1973. It was then taken over by the

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...

before a management buyout in 1978 created Prime Publications.

Data management

The company began publishing directories in the 1960s and data management became a sector of growing importance, resulting in the 1964 cooperation with International Shipping Information Services, which became FIRS, Fairplay International Research and Statistics. In 1973, the Fairplay company was taken over by the

group, before a

management buy-out A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...

in 1979, one of the first in the UK, transferred ownership to Prime Publications. Prime improved the data management sector by storing information in

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...

s and started to sell directories on CD-ROM in the 1990s.

Internet age

Fairplay was the first maritime publication to start an

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

and

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

daily news service, in 1996. Its data management activities led to a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and economic risk, risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four rea ...

with

Lloyd's Register Lloyd's Register Group Limited (LR) is a technical and professional services organisation and a maritime classification society, wholly owned by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a UK charity dedicated to research and education in science and ...

in 2001, known as Lloyd's Register–Fairplay Ltd (LR Fairplay). This new enterprise was then the sole provider of IMO numbers. The next years saw several acquisitions of other companies and in 2004, a partnership with HITT NV of the Netherlands, which created AISLive, a broadcast system for tracking vessel movements. ''Fairplay'' was acquired by

IHS IHS may refer to: Religious * Christogram IHS or ΙΗΣ, a monogram symbolizing Jesus Christ * ''In hoc signo'', used by Roman emperor Constantine the Great Organizations * Indian Health Service, an operating division of the US Department of Hea ...

in 2008, including 50% of LRFairplay, and the corporation also bought Lloyd's Register's 50% share of that maritime data business in 2009.

Present

In 2011, the Fairplay publication company was renamed IHS Fairplay. It produced the weekly magazine in print, a digital edition, a daily email newsletter, and the monthly magazine ''Solutions''. Additionally, Fairplay's website provided up-to-date news and information for registered users (“up to five free articles every thirty days“) and subscribers. The organisation was based in

Coulsdon Coulsdon (, traditionally pronounced ) is a town in south London, England, within the London Borough of Croydon, in the ceremonial county of Greater London since 1965. Prior to this it was part of the historic county of Surrey. History The loc ...

, UK, has offices in America, Singapore, Sweden and a network of correspondents worldwide. In September 2018 it was announced that Fairplay would cease publication by the end of 2018, with the last issue due to print the first week of December.

References

External links

{{IHS Markit Business magazines published in the United Kingdom News magazines published in the United Kingdom Weekly magazines published in the United Kingdom Magazines established in 1883 Maritime magazines Merchant navy