Media companies Fairfax and NZME will not be merging their businesses as the High Court has dismissed their appeal to join forces.
Reasons for the decision have not been released, with the court saying in a statement it backs the Commerce Commission and that the watchdog is entitled to costs from the media firms.
Fairfax chief executive Sinead Boucher says the decision is disappointing.
"The two companies sought the merger because it was our belief that it was in best interests of the NZ media industry. A combined business would have created efficiencies and benefits that would have made it easier to continue to deliver high quality independent journalism at scale for the benefit of Kiwis around the country," she says in an email to staff.
The media companies went to court in October to try and overturn the Commerce Commission's original decision to block the merger.
- Stuff
1 comment
Monopoly vs 4th estate degradation?
Posted on 19-12-2017 17:48 | By MISS ADVENTURE
The former is desired to maximise profits and reduce costs, it would also corner teh job market and allow for control of staff, wages and so on - all very monoploist stuff and bad for everyone else. The profits would increase also. The other side of the equation is that these mega beasts can not survive in a fast changing market where advertising revenue is dropping becasue of internet and other competition all over the place. Result is that the current level of reporting, investigation and journalism has degraded into "copy/paste" and ambulance chasing. Neither are a good rresult at all. There is no good answer at all. The result will be cutting little profit centers, breakeven and loss making areas which means jobs and circulation options will drop. More for example will end up in Auckland/centralised and thats bad EVERY-DAY for content, lefty-nutter-crazies writing 24/7!
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