Murdoch’s Newspaper Price Cuts Attacked

The Liberal Democrat trade and industry spokesman in the Lords, Lord McNally, has criticised News International’s newspaper price cuts, particularly The Times which sells at 10p on Mondays. Rupert Murdoch’s News International, which also publishes the Sun for 28p daily, has been attacked by a number of Government figures including Robin Cook, Mo Mowlam and the minister for competition policy Nigel Griffiths. Griffiths is reportedly worried that the public will eventually only have two papers to choose from, The Times and the Sun.

As a result, Lord McNally and others are to propose amendments to the Competition Bill in the Lords this Thursday. Lord McNally has proposed that a company should not “deliberately” accept losses “in order to reduce competition” and, furthermore, that “setting prices for the purpose of reducing, retarding, injuring or eliminating the competition” should not be allowed. Lord McNally’s amendments also call for firms to be prohibited from “using a cross-subsidy from another sector of the market to enable the implementation of predatory pricing”. The owner of the two Independent titles, Newspaper Publishing, has also begun lobbying for amendments to be made to the Bill.