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SOh, Lord Rothermere has achieved a long-held personal ambition by agreeing deal to buy Wire newspaper headlines,
apparently, £500m acquisition Makes perfect sense. Wirewhich has been for sale for two years, will finally find a home that will cherish it and maintain its editorial independence. For rothermere and his daily Mail The group, owned by two large publishing operations, would have economies of scale. They can remove costs from back office and printing and distribution operations. Whether further savings will be made from the already reduced editorial departments at both main titles is a different matter.
Rothermere would stand alone, unchallenged, as the owner of a right-wing media powerhouse with enormous influence over middle England, something that has long attracted him.
issues about Wire Falling into foreign hands and being influenced by Middle Eastern state sympathizers/supporters is far from over. So there’s fear about that too WireIts continued existence: When it was first put on the market, there was an absence of interested bidders – not at the asking price.
But this is not so easy. On the basis of monopoly, there is a clear case for regulators to scrutinize the intended combination closely, Ofcomand this Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)However, audience-centric concerns are based solely on the print market share which is declining, However, this is unlikely to stop the CMA – just last month it announced an in-depth investigation into the proposed merger between Getty Images and Shutterstock, This is despite the fact that photo-licensing and picture libraries face ever-increasing pressure from AI,
Technological progress is of little concern to CMA. In this sense, the regulator lags behind reality. absolutely real aspect of Match,Wire integration, and what really lies behind Rothermere’s business motivation is not newsprint at all but digital: he and his partners believe they can drive Wire online subscription, bringing the expertise that they have successfully deployed Match in the area where Wire Found wanted.
It’s a real attraction for Rothermere. Then, ironically, his move may be blocked or weakened by concerns that are really secondary. For them, this is primarily a digitally focused acquisition, make no mistake.
To please the watchdogs, he may need to unload stuff I newspapers and MetroBasically, when they first expressed interest in purchasing it Wire And Rupert Murdoch was following audienceis also part of it Wire group, it was thought they would come to an arrangement: Rothermere would sell I To Murdoch, who will get rid of the problem of competition. Is the Murdoch Group, now run by Lachlan, son of Rupertwould still be interested I is not clear. Similarly, it is also uncertain who will come forward to take it Metro,
The second factor here is politics. The left is bound to howl at the idea of one owner, an alt-right, owning such a large portion of the newspaper industry. They will complain about too much power being concentrated in one person and demand that it be stopped.
This ignores the fact that Wire It is hardly a Labor group and opposes Labor just as strongly, certainly this government, if less vocally, as it does. MatchKeeping them under the same ownership is unlikely to make much difference, Like the regulators, he also pays no attention to the fact that this is an argument rooted in the past – when newspapers could actually have some say on the outcome of elections, Match And Wire He was staunchly anti-Labour, yet look at the final voting result: no one – or rather very few people – were paying him any attention.
While his backbenchers will be quiet, Sir Keir Starmer may consider taking a more pragmatic approach. Ultimately, if the merger happens it will be their decision. He might decide that if he did not give them his blessing, he would make worse enemies of both than they were at present: that, by consenting to the union, he might obtain their assent also. It won’t last, but right now it’s much better than the current, constant, daily hostilities.
However, this would bring him into conflict with members of his own party. First, he has shown an inability and unwillingness to confront the left – the climbdown over welfare reform being the most glaring example. Again, this presents Starmer with an intriguing dilemma.
One thing is certain: After the controversy over the takeover of our news media by ultra-wealthy foreign rulers has subsided, a new battlefield is opening. Rothermere still has some distance to go.