AAP sale of media monitoring service to iSentia sparks monopoly fears from ACCC

The sale of the Australian Associated Press’ media monitoring service to iSentia would lead to a monopoly in the market, the  Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has found.

In its preliminary investigation of the sale the ACCC has found it would likely result in a “substantial lessening of competition in the national market”, as the AAP and the company formerly known as Media Monitors are the only two national media monitoring services comprising print, broadcast and online.

A Statement of Issues (SoI) released by the ACCC today finds that although there are other small scale media monitoring services in market, iSentia and the AAP are the only two to provide services to large companies with extensive media monitoring requirements

The AAP, whose major shareholders are News Corp and Fairfax Media, has around 300 media monitoring clients including the government departments of education, employment and  workplace relations, the Australian Tax Office, Toyota, Edelman Australia, Suncorp and Stockland Corp.