Fairfax shores up its position post-reform

The movements within the Australian media industry, instigated by Senator Coonan’s media ownership reform legislation, continue. The latest was the merger announced Wednesday of Fairfax Holdings (FXJ) and Rural Press (RUP). There’s also news late last night / this morning that CanWest is actively looking for buyers of its TEN Network stake too.

Fairfax’s online arm, Fairfax Digital, continues in the background to push ahead with its growth & diversification-by-acquisition plans. One of the double-edged features of the blogosphere is the ‘echo-chamber’ effect: news can spread to everyone rapidly, but the flipside is rumours can also spread and get bounced around so much that they soon start to sound like fact.

It’s with that prelude that I point to Hugh Martin’s post that Fairfax Digital purchased successful parenting site Essential Baby earlier this week (for somewhere in the vicinity of $1.5million).  (Hugh’s blog is a good read by the way - he is editor of News Ltd’s news.com.au.)