1 page of @DomPost classifieds! Rupert Murdoch once referred to the classifieds as a river of gold.

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Failing firm defence for legacy media mergers

There is a large literature on the failing firm defence to merger law. I wrote an Australian Law Journal article about that defence many years ago.

The essence of the argument is that when a firm is to fail, the choice is between a high cost single plant monopoly and a lower cost multi-plant monopoly that absorbs the asset failed firm. For today’s purposes, that would be newspapers that would otherwise close but for the now blocked Fairfax/NZME media merger

Some think allowing mergers of market leaders with failing firms is good for competition.

To get a merger clearance on the basis of the failing firm defence, the merging companies must provide sufficient, compelling evidence that the failing firm will inevitably leave the market without the merger and there is no less anti-competitive alternative.

The basic rationale behind the doctrine is that since the failing firm would have left the market anyway due to its financial collapse, any harm to competition caused by the loss of an independent market player would arise regardless of the merger. Allowing the merger saves scrapping the assets of the failed firm.

Posner and Easterbrook described the failing firm defence as one of the most pernicious doctrines to ever arise in antitrust law. They did not elaborate much.

The existence value of a Kindle library and a real library

I was wondering other day that if we were locked out of our Kindle, which has about 300 books on it, would this be as devastating as if our library of real books was lost such as in a fire. You need to recall a password to sign into a Kindle when upgrading or replacing a damaged unit.

Kindle_Vs_paperback

The crux of the matter is you cannot admire your Kindle library from afar, much less show it off to friends when they visit to make yourself look learned.

In common with my Kindle books, I do not plan to reread many of my real books but I would be devastated if they were lost. Knowing that that they are there is a comfort.

I would not be so upset if I lost my Kindle books. Perhaps partly is the Kindle books that I buy I am too cheap to buy unless they are at Kindle prices. I doubt that any of my Kindle books cost more than $10.

Creative destruction in election news

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Creative destruction in print media

Creative destruction in mass media employment since 1990

The Bureau of Labour Statistics chart included books which I took it out along with a few others to confine the information to newspapers and other competitors in the mass media. People still study journalism but more and more go to public relations jobs in government and business.

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Source: Employment trends in newspaper publishing and other media, 1990–2016 : The Economics Daily: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Peak newspaper jobs

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Creative destruction in news sources

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Creative destruction in video store employment

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Creative destruction in media share prices

The ageing of the couch potato

Creative destruction in Ad spending

Mobile phones dominate news website visits

People still actually buy CDs!

Refereeing processes at magazines versus academic journals

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