Court of Appeal rejects NZME-Stuff merger
The Court of Appeal has turned down the proposed merger between media companies NZME and Stuff.
Photo: RNZ
In December last year, the High Court upheld the Commerce Commission's decision to refuse the merger.
The commission had turned down the merger because of concerns about concentrating too much commercial and editorial
power in one organisation.
It singled out the loss of media diversity as a key issue.
The two firms had appealed against that decision.
NZME said it was disappointed and would review the full judgment and consider its options.
Between them the two groups publish most of the country's daily and weekend newspapers, and own a major commercial radio
network and two leading news websites.
Stuff owns the Stuff website, as well as newspapers like the Dominion Post, The Press and Sunday Star-Times as well as local social media site, Neighbourly and new ventures like Stuff Fibre.
NZME owns the New Zealand Herald, nzherald.co.nz, regional papers The Northern Advocate, Rotorua Daily Post, Bay of Plenty Times, Hawkes Bay Today, the Whanganui Chronicle and a stable of radio stations including NewstalkZB. It is marching on with plans to charge for online news.
The two companies applied to the Commerce Commission to amalgamate in 2015.
They told the Commission that the merger would allow a greater chance of survival against global competitors, like
Google and Facebook, who were taking local advertising dollars.