Contingent on regulatory approval, News Corp. is acquiring APN’s regional division, giving News Corp. an extraordinary footprint in Queensland as Mumbrella reports.
There was a time such a concentration of media ownership would concern Australians. No more. Maybe that is as a result of the level of concentration of media ownership we already have in Australia.
From a newsagent interest perspective, the Mumbrella article includes this:
Potential areas for News Corp to examine in which savings could be made include:
- The Ipswich Advertiser/The Queensland Times
- Mackay’s The Daily Mercury/The Midweek
- The Whitsunday Coast Guardian/ The Whitsunday Times
- Rockhampton’s Morning Bulletin/The Capricorn Coast Mirror
- Bundaberg’s NewsMail/The Guardian
- Childers’ Isis Town & Country/Maryborough’s Fraser Coast Chronicle/Maryborough Herald
- Hervey Bay Observer/The Hervey Bay Independent
- The Gympie Times/The Cooloola Advertiser
- Noosa News/Caloundra Weekly/Kawana Weekly/The Sunshine Coast Daily
- Southern Downs Weekly/The Warwick Daily News
- Toowoomba Life/The Chronicle
- Lismore’s Northern Star/The Lismore Echo
- Grafton’s The Daily Examiner/Coastal Views
Its going the other way in WA with News Corp deep in negotiations to sell the Sunday Times to 7West Media. This would leave 7West Media with a monopoly on state based newspapers and The Australian as News Corp’s only newspaper in WA.
Considering the current (appalling) quality of the journalism in the Sunday Times it probably can’t come soon enough for most readers.
Poor Mungo Mcalum would be erupting from his grave (if he is dead and buried) if the echo taken over by Rupert Murdoch.