Internet search engine giant Google is expected to argue in favour of relaxing merger rules within the local press – to help it compete with internet companies such as itself.

Large-scale publishers such as Trinity Mirror and Johnston Press have argued consistently that rules preventing merger between local firms is hampering their long-term stability.

Now Google, which itself has come under fire for its free news aggregation service, is now backing calls for a relaxation of the rules.

The Times reports that Google UK’s MD Matt Brittin has written to the Office of Fair Trading.

It said: “Google supports the position of many newspapers for the need to allow for a 21st century merger regime, allowing local and regional news services to merge and consolidate in order to create…competitive news offerings”.

The OFT is currently reviewing the merger rules as part of the Digital Britain paper being produced by the Government.

Last week it emerged that the OFT’s report would not be published until mid-June, to coincide with the Digital Britain report, despite assurances that it would be ready in April.

Comments

Another Northcliffe Old-Hand (19/05/2009 15:49:09)
Do not be fooled by this – Google does not do anything that is not in its own long-term best interests. A scaled down and consolidated regional press will leave a huge gap in the market for local content , local eyeballs and more importantly local advertising. Google strategists are in a different league to regional press management when it comes to monetising content.

regionalhack (20/05/2009 12:07:32)
I agree with Another Northcliffe Old Hand, but would add is it really better for local papers to be owned by even larger publishing companies? Such companies expect grand, company targets to be achieved, instead of realistic local targets, and funnel all the profits to shareholders instead of back into the business. Just look at JP’s horrendous debts to see what a state a large company with larger ambitions can get into. Local ownership, with smaller ambitions, and realistic profit margins seems to be stronger, such as Iliffe .

J (20/05/2009 16:30:20)
what regionalhack said.