Rupert Murdoch backtracks in UK free paper market
Last week's news that Rupert Murdoch is closing his free London newspaper has highlighted a growing problem in the UK media sector where advertising is well down and many companies do not plan to increase their budgets for the foreseeable future. There are many free papers up and down the UK which carry historically lucrative adverts which had until today made the papers fairly profitable. However, the demise of the UK economy has seen marketing budgets slashed and the various free newspapers up and down the UK have suffered dramatically.
It is fair to say that a pincer movement concerning the UK economy and online advertising have in many ways put paid to free newspapers in the foreseeable future. It will be interesting to see how this closure of Rupert Murdoch's operation affects the many other free newspapers in the UK and whether in fact they will be able to carry on themselves.
Many analysts feel that further mergers and acquisitions in the UK media market are inevitable as companies look to cut costs in the short to medium term and attempt to return to profitability as soon as possible. There could be significant job cuts if any mergers or acquisitions go ahead as companies are usually very keen to keep their cost bases as low as possible.
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