Acquisitions

Orkla-Mecom: Dashed Hopes - and a political catch22

Kristine Lowe

14 Jul 2006 — 1 min read

DN reported yesterday that Montgomery had raised the necessary funds to buy Orkla Media. The newspapers said the deal is expected to be completed and signed on Monday 17 July. "To the very last, we have clung to the hope that the new owner would not be Mecom," Carine Johansen, the leader of the Norwegian Journalists Union's Orkla chapel, told DN, but added that the union members were ready to face reality and make the most of it. (More coverage in Norwegian: Journalisten, Kampanje)

In an Op-Ed in Dagbladet, senior journalism lecturer Johann Roppen, who wrote his PhD on Orkla Media, outlined how dramatically Mecom’s increased demands to profitability could weaken journalistic output and what political tools the Norwegian Government has at its disposal to curb such a development. One such tool would be to increase press subsidies to Mecom’s competitors (Orkla newspapers currently receive limited subsidies and Orkla has campaigned to remove public support to newspapers all together). However, Roppen cautioned that such political meddling easily could backfire and indicated that to intervene or not posed a bit of a catch22 to the politicians in charge.

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