The owner of the Daily Mirror has said it is in talks to buy the owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star.Trinity Mirror said it was in talks to buy all of the publishing assets of Northern & Shell, which also produces the celebrity magazine OK!.It had previously been in talks to take a minority stake in the company.As well as the Mirror titles, Trinity Mirror also publishes the Daily Record, the Sunday People and more than a hundred regional newspapers. ‘Massive consolidation’Northern & Shell is owned by Richard Desmond, who paid £125m for the Express titles in 2000.The company currently owns four national newspaper titles – the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday. It also publishes celebrity magazines OK!, new! and Star, and has a 50% stake in the Irish Daily Star.In 2014, Mr Desmond sold Channel 5 to MTV-owner, Viacom for £463m.The BBC’s media editor, Amol Rajan, said that it looked as if Mr Desmond was getting out of the media industry altogether.”He said he is selling his big profit-making newspapers to Trinity Mirror and this suggests he thinks print is not where a businessman like him should be.”The reason this is happening is Fleet Street is facing huge, huge structural challenges, with readers and advertisers moving very quickly to online platforms.”We have a lot of newspapers for a relatively small country in terms of readership.” He said there was going to be “massive consolidation” within the industry due to a decline in print advertising.In its statement, Trinity Mirror said: “The board of Trinity Mirror notes that it is now in discussions to acquire 100 percent of the publishing assets of Northern & Shell.” It added that there was no certainty an agreement would be reached, and any deal would need to be approved by Trinity Mirror shareholders.
Source: BBC News