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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
(Kowalski, 2006: 49), Passauer did not develop its business on a such scale as Orkla
and Mecom.
Last but not least, Passauer was established as a family running business and what’s
more as a strictly media business, whereas Orkla was a multi-trade holding company
owning beside media shares also investments in mining, food or solar energy
industries. Thus, observing researchers were not surprised when in 2006 Orkla sold
its media assets out to Mecom. Because these shares were only a tenth part of the
whole company income and no longer so profitable as they were early on, there was
no point to still keeping them. The history of Mecom is the shortest one and the
achievements to date proved that the Brits would not hesitate to sell any of their
divisions if the situation forced them to do so.
This may lead us to a hypothesis about the future shape of the regional daily press
market in Poland. If Mecom manages to reach an agreement with the Treasury to
privatize the broadsheet, it will be sell out to one of the competitors on the nationwide
market. Moreover, the Brits will consider to withdraw from Poland completely due to
the dissimilarity from other divisions. In the meantime, the Germans will try to take
over Mecom’s shares in the regional press sector, which is Passauer’s core of
interest. If they succeed, the readers will be the biggest loser without choice of other
point of view.
End Note
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr Adam Szynol,
Institute of Journalism and Social Communication, ul. Joliot-Curie 15, room 207, 50-
383 Wroclaw, Poland. E-mail: adam.szynol@wp.pl . Phone: +48 71 37 57 907
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