ACS

The Association of News Retailing (ANR) and the National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN) representing the full spectrum of retail newsagents in the UK are calling on the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to refer the newspaper and magazine industry to the Competition Commission (CC) for a full market investigation.

In making this joint request, in response to the OFT’s consultation on a Market Investigation Reference (MIR), the retail associations are telling the OFT that self-regulation in the news industry without the force of legal under-pinning does not work.

The associations are also expressing their deep concern over recent publisher/distributor – wholesaler contract changes which aim to exclude Dawson News from the market and lead to a duopoly between Smiths News and Menzies Distribution. This rides a coach and horses through the OFT’s written Opinion, published in October 2008, in which it called for more competition at the magazine wholesaling level.

In a hard hitting, jointly supported submission, the retail associations have also raised concerns with the OFT over other key market features that the OFT did not investigate fully, when making its initial decision not to make a MIR to the CC. In the retailers’ view, the case for a full market investigation is now overwhelming.