The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced today that it would not act to prevent the acquisition of Pacific Magazines by Bauer Media. Over the last decade, all magazine titles have been losing circulation to online sources. Pacific Magazines was one business Seven West Media wished to sell.
The ACCC acknowledged the constraint imposed by online sources; nevertheless it was concerned that the acquisition would place two pairs of magazines in the same hands: Woman's Day and New Idea, and Take 5 and That's Life!. Frontier Economics was retained by lawyers for both Bauer Media and Pacific Magazines to undertake detailed empirical analysis of scan data to test in various ways the degree of substitution within each of these pairs of magazines. Our work found that the scan data over recent years did not reveal a high degree of competition within each of these pairs of magazines.
Frontier Economics regularly advises clients on competition matters involving the use of quantitative analysis.
