Reuters: AOL closes in on British publisher. In what would be its first big European acquisition since its own merger, AOL Time Warner could reach a deal with IPC as soon as next week after a long stretch of on-off talks with the British magazine group owned by venture capital firm Cinven.
Hard to get all that excited about this, though it’s more conglomeration in a business that’s plenty concentrated already. But no one has a lock on magazines — yet. There are more titles on the newstands than a decade ago, vastly more. And the Web has given voice to many others.
Still, the media concentration worldwide is a bad trend if you care about an informed public. The real problem is concentration in the top rungs, where the corporate giants are taking an alarming amount of control over what we see and read.