French free merger rumored
Business paper La Tribune wrote this morning about a ‘inevitable’ merge between the two major free dailies in France: 20 Minutes and Metro. Inevitable because of the economic situation and the difficult position of both papers.
This kind of news could be written off as total - although educated - speculation. The only difference was that La Tribune reported that French commercial TV station TF1, a 34.5% shareholder in Metro France, approached 20 Minutes in order to talk about cooperation.
Metro denied the rumors, while 20 Minutes only said that they were interested in anything that led to growth and consolidation. (Jean Marc Morandini)
A cooperation would, however, fit in Metro’s international strategy while in Sweden Metro and Schibsted (50% owner of 20 Minutes France) are already working together.
In France the situation is more complicated as the pressure on the advertising market is also caused by the two free papers by Vincent Bolloré: DirectMatin and DirectSoir and by various Plus free papers in markets like Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux and Montpellier.
November 18th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
[...] Enquanto isso, empresas de comunicação do exterior pensam em bons modelos de negócio. O modo de sobrevivência encontrado é o que já havia salientado em um post um dia aí: união. E é o que vejo hoje no Newspaper Innovation. [...]