Daily Mail’s Parent Company Buys Out The ‘i’ Newspaper

December 7, 2019

The parent company of the British newspaper The Daily Mail has begun the process of purchasing the i newspaper for £49.6m from JPI Media. DMGT (Daily Mail & General Trust), a multinational conglomerate who own a number of British newspapers made a bid for the newspaper, which was initially started as a sister paper to The Independent, who have now ceased their print publications.

Beneficial To Both?

In a statement released in late November by the company, owners said that this new acquisition presented both financial and strategic opportunities for DMGT and that the i, which is one of the smaller newspapers on rotation in the United Kingdom, would benefit greatly from the existing infrastructure in advertising and international sales that DMGT’s current newspapers get through their parent company.

In the same announcement, the company admitted that it was likely to be the subject of an investigation by the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority), thanks to its sizeable share in the newspaper market.

DMGT not only owns the Daily Mail but also publishes the Mail on Sunday and The Metro. Should the deal be successful, it would place the entirety of Britain’s print newspaper ownership in the hands of six companies.

The CMA has four months to decide if it wants to pursue a further investigation after the deal is made public, after which contractual negotiations can begin.

Mixed Response

The announcement has been met with mixed responses. DMGT’s shares fluctuated, eventually closing down from the previous day by 0.2%.

Whilst the editorial team and top bosses at the i welcomed their new owners, activists and politicians have been warning of what this may mean for the future of journalism.

The i positioned itself as a politically neutral paper giving bite-sized looks at the issues of the day.

The Daily Mail, on the other hand, has not tried to hide its more conservative leanings. A representative for DMGT stated that the two papers would be kept editorially separate to preserve the neutrality that i readers are used to.

If successful, DMGT will be the fourth owner of the i paper. It was initially sold to Johnston Press in 2016 after The Independent closed its print facilities.