Christmas Commiserations to the Daily Mail Group

south west | media and culture | news report Wednesday December 24, 2008 11:06 by Media Watch - South West Watch

South West Watch: the Noel News for one and all!!

Welcome to South West Watch - the harking heralds of news for the region. Our Media Watch desk has a end-of-year message for the DMGT.

Yes kids, it's a sad time for DMGT (not to be confused with top retro-rockers from New York MGMT) - that is the Daily Mail media group who own plenty of outlets from Metro to Venue, from the Evening Post to the Western Daily press. It was reported recently that the value of of the DMGT empire was in these recession soaked-times as a paltry £940 million.

Why is this due for commiserations? Well the value has dropped below the £1 billion mark and further commiserations are due when you think that back in February 2006 the US media giant Gannett (and others) were looking to offer DMGT a staggering £1.2 billion for JUST Northcliffe (the bit of the company that owns the regional newspapers like the Post etc. Yes, that's right if they had sold back in '06 they could have pocketed more than the entire value of the company now for just one bit of the whole.

That said, as the reported, Gannett itself is not doing too well...since September 30th 2008, the Gannett stock price dropped from $17 to around $7.20 - a drop of around 60%. Gannett own the UK outfit Newsquest, who in turn own a huge chunk of local papers across the UK and in the South West. So for example they own the Swindon Advertiser, the Cheltenham Independent, the Dorset Advertiser, the Mid Devon Star, the Bridgwater Mercury and the Somerset County Gazette to name but a few.

Media Watch signing off now - have a happy holiday!

More SouthWestWatch articles;

Red Faces at the Evening Post & The Decline of the Local Press
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/688859

Gannett Plans 10% Cut in Workforce
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/689199

The Ongoing Decline in Local Media: ITV Cuts
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/688980