The owner of the Daily Mirror has said it is in talks to buy the owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star.
Trinity Mirror said it was in talks to buy all of the publishing assets of Northern & Shell, which also produces the celebrity magazine OK!.
It had previously been in talks to take a minority stake in the company.
As well as the Mirror titles, Trinity Mirror also publishes the Daily Record, the Sunday People and more than a hundred regional newspapers.
‘Massive consolidation’
Northern & Shell is owned by Richard Desmond, who paid £125m for the titles in 2000.
In 2014, Mr Desmond sold Channel 5 to MTV-owner, Viacom for £463m.
The BBC’s media editor, Amol Rajan, said that it looked as if Mr Desmond was getting out of the media industry altogether.
“He said he is selling his big profit-making newspapers to Trinity Mirror and this suggests he thinks print is not where a businessman like him should be.
“The reason this is happening is Fleet Street is facing huge, huge structural challenges, with readers and advertisers moving very quickly to online platforms.
“We have a lot of newspapers for a relatively small country in terms of readership.”
He said there was going to be “massive consolidation” within the industry due to a decline in print advertising.
Read more at bbc.co.uk
