Antitrust Commissioner David Gila approved this morning (Wednesday) the acquisition of the newspaper Makor Rishon and the NRG website by the Israel Hayom group, and the acquisition of the newspaper Maariv by Eli Azur's media group.
Gilo informed his decision to trustee CPA Eli Berdichev, who a few days ago threatened that if the transactions were not approved by Thursday, he would be forced to close the two newspapers.
In recent days, Makor Rishon employees have held protests and demonstrations against the Antitrust Commissioner, demanding that he approve the sale.
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The sales transactions were carried out after Shlomo Ben-Zvi's company, which operated the Makor Rishon and Maariv newspapers and the NRG website, ran into financial difficulties. As a result, the Jerusalem District Court ordered a stay of proceedings and the appointment of a trustee.
The Antitrust Authority stated that the Commissioner's investigation revealed that while Israel Hayom is a daily newspaper with a wide circulation, appealing to a broad target audience and distributed for free, Makor Rishon is sold for a relatively significant price, mainly on weekends, in a relatively limited scope, to a distinct and distinct readership.
The Commissioner's investigation also revealed that the vast majority of Makor Rishon readers were already exposed to the Israel Hayom newspaper. Accordingly, it was found that Israel Hayom's incentive to negatively influence the content of Makor Rishon is not sufficiently clear. The Commissioner further concluded that another significant delay in deciding who will purchase the newspaper raises concerns about its continued existence, and therefore concerns about harm to the consumer public that purchases it.
Accordingly, it was found that there is no concern about harm to competition or harm to the reading public or advertisers in the above aspects.
In addition, the scope of activity of the NRG website and the Israel Hayom website on the Internet is relatively limited, and therefore it was found that the acquisition of NRG by Israel Hayom does not raise the aforementioned concerns.
Regarding the merger between the Jerusalem Post and Maariv, the Commissioner's examination focused on the connection that would be created between the Maariv newspaper and the weekend newspapers and the Israel Post, which is in ownership relations with the Jerusalem Post.
The examination revealed that the combined share of Maariv, Sofashava and Israel Post in the field of journalism is relatively small, and that there are other large and significant competitors in the field. Accordingly, it was found that the impact of the merger on competition is negligible, and therefore the Commissioner deemed it appropriate to approve the merger.
