Daily Mail owner buys i as UK regional market consolidates

DMGT to pay £50m for national daily that belongs to indebted JPI Media

The owner of the Daily Mail has bought the national daily the i, the first transaction to come out of the drawn-out bidding process for JPI Media titles as the struggling UK regional newspaper market consolidates.

The £49.6m deal for the daily comes after JPI, the publisher behind the i, The Scotsman, Yorkshire Post and around 200 other regional titles, put itself up for sale late last year following the indebted company’s rescue by its creditors.

Daily Mail and General Trust on Friday said its consumer media business would pay in cash for the title, formerly known as The Independent, which in 2018 generated revenues of £34m.

Lord Rothermere, chairman of DMGT, said the company was “committed to preserving [the i’s] distinctive, high quality and politically independent editorial style”.

“The acquisition of the i is both strategically and financially compelling for DMGT and there is scope for potential synergies in the future, notably from DMG media’s existing infrastructure and in advertising sales,” he said.

DMGT said it expected the deal to be reviewed by the UK Competition and Markets Authority.

The i, which was launched in 2010 as a sister paper to The Independent and named British national newspaper of the year in 2015, has a weekday circulation of roughly 170,000. Its website inews.co.uk attracts approximately 300,000 daily browsers and Lord Rothermere called it a “growing digital media asset”.

A note circulated internally from JPI chief executive David King said that the i’s editor Oliver Duff would remain in place and that “terms and conditions of employment” of staff would not be affected by the deal.

JPI was known as Johnston Press before it collapsed into administration last November. The owner of the Daily Mail had been seen as the frontrunner to buy the i, while the future of JPI’s regional titles has become more uncertain after newspaper group Reach confirmed on Friday that it had pulled out of talks.