On 20 January 2026, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport announced that she is “minded to” intervene in the bid by Daily Mail General Trust to buy Telegraph Media Group.

As we detailed in our previous post when DMGT first declared its intention to buy TMG, this takeover would be catastrophic to media plurality in the UK, and would significantly worsen the already-excessive levels of media concentration in the national newspaper industry.

The Media Reform Coalition has written formally to the Secretary of State, welcoming her statement and urging the Government to proceed with a formal intervention notice, which would instigate investigations by Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority.

Read our letter to the Culture Secretary:

Dear Secretary of State,

We write regarding your written statement to the House and correspondence with Daily Mail and General Trust (both dated 20 January 2026), concerning the proposed acquisition of Telegraph Media Group by DMGT.

The Media Reform Coalition welcomes that you are minded to issue a Public Interest Intervention Notice on the Section 58 considerations for plurality of views and plurality of persons with control of news media.

Attached is our 2025 research report, ‘Who Owns The UK Media?’, which details the shares of market ownership and audience reach in the UK’s media.

Per our most recent analysis, a DMGT takeover of TMG would give DMGT, and its ultimate owner Lord Rothermere, control over:

• almost half (48.29%) of UK national newspaper circulation, in a market that would (after the acquisition) comprise just five publishing companies;
• a 21% share of the combined online reach of the UK’s national newspaper ‘newsbrands’, the highest in the market and double the reach of the next nearest competitor;
• a 12% share of the combined online reach of the UK’s top 50 news publishers, second only to Reach (which controls hundreds of regional and local news websites in addition to its national titles).

The UK’s media already faces a severe crisis of concentrated media ownership. A DMGT takeover of the Telegraph titles would significantly harm the plurality of views presented in the UK’s newspaper market (which remains a significant agenda-setter for the broadcast and online news sectors) and concentrate even more market control & political power into the hands of a single media owner, Lord Rothermere.

We would welcome the opportunity to meet with you and discuss our research on media ownership, including the urgent reforms needed to update and future-proof the UK’s plurality and media mergers regimes.

Kind regards,

Professor Lee Edwards
Chair, Media Reform Coalition

Dr Tom Chivers
Vice-chair, Media Reform Coalition