Trinity Mirror (TM) has acquired Guardian Media Group’s (GMG) regional media business for £7.4 million cash, also releasing GMG from a £37.4 million liability print contract

The deal is the first significant consolidation play since the cyclical downturn that started in 2008 helped reduce local newspaper advertising by about 35% or £1 billion. TM is understood to have beaten private equity to the deal, signalling that consolidation activity in local media may be starting to warm up

While the price tag appears small for a business that generated £94.5 million in FY 2009, its operating profit had fallen to £0.5 million, and TM should be able to realise measurable local synergies and cost savings

Yell announced this week that full year sales growth (to March 2008) in its UK operations would be 2%, sharply down from the previously forecast 3%, due to “toughening market conditions” since the start of 2008

Rumours that Google was acquiring Yell emerged at the end of last week, but we doubt the search giant would be interested in purchasing a traditional media company, particularly not one predominantly in print

The Guardian Media Group (GMG) sale of a minority stake of Trader Media, publisher of AutoTrader, in 2007 is well timed to maximise its price, given the preponderance of downside risks to classified print adverts

Yell UK is the dominant supplier of Classified Advertising Directory Services (CDAS) in the UK. Its principal competitor is BT but, as a natural monopoly, it is regulated, and has just undergone a sector review lifting the price caps currently in place. What does the future now hold for Yell, and more generally for CDAS, which has been the only growth sector in print classified advertising since 2004?

Claire Enders set out the implications of a Yes vote in the Scottish independence referendum for the media available in Scotland. She critically examines the SNP's plans for a Scottish media, and argues that Scotland's small population would make an independent media hard to sustain. When the effect of a nationalist 'nation-building' project is factored in too, the overall results would be serious costs to the quality of democracy Scots enjoy.