The merger of Fréttablaðið and Hringbraut

The Competition Authority has been reviewing the merger of Torg ehf. and Hringbraut fjölmiðla ehf. Torg is the publishing company of the Fréttablaðið newspaper and also operates the website frettabladid.is. Hringbraut Media operates the television channel Hringbraut and the website hringbraut.is.

The activities of the merger parties overlap in the market for the publication of online media. According to media measurement, where only a portion of domestic online media is measured, the merger parties have an approximately 11.1% share of that market. It is clear that other competitors in this field enjoy a significant advantage.

Based on the above, and in particular the opinion of the Media Commission, the Competition Authority has concluded that there are no grounds for intervention in respect of the merger under Article 17(c) of the Competition Act or Article 62(b)(8) of the Media Act.