Competition watchdogs have delayed a report into whether to relax cross-media ownership rules despite having promised it would be ready by mid-April.

The Government announced in January that the Office of Fair Trading would be carrying out a review on the current rules as part of the Digital Britain report.

To begin with, no timetable was put on the review – but this led to a stinging attack by Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey accusing the Government of showing a lack of urgency.

The OFT then moved to address the criticisms by making clear that the review would be completed by mid-April.

Now the Newspaper Society has been told that the OFT report is to delayed until next month to coincide with the publication of the final Digital Britain report.

The results of the review are now expected to be published on or around 16 June when the final version of Digital Britain is due to be published.

The OFT review sparked a bitter debate over whether or not allowing further consolidation within the industry would help local newspapers to survive.

A group of seven large regional newspaper publishers calling itself the Local Media Alliance has argued strongly in favour of the idea, but free newspaper boss Chris Bullivant and the National Union of Journalists have backed a ‘small is beautiful’ solution to the industry’s troubles.

Comments

Liz Justice (15/05/2009 17:24:37)
Amazing isn’t it that yet again you have failed to mention the Chartered Institute of Journalists who led the consultation and presented a well thought out response. Presented may I add by a former business editor from a regional newspaper. The CIoJ may not be the biggest Union but it’s influence and fight for the professional journalist remains very strong. Anyone interested in reading what we had to say can access it at www.cioj.co.uk