A billion-dollar deal threatens to push media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation to the sidelines of British politics, as The Daily Mail seeks to buy out its more upmarket rival, The Telegraph, to consolidate its position as country’s most powerful right-wing publisher.

The Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), owner of The Mail and a suite of other right-wing media assets in the United Kingdom, has emerged as the victor in a two-plus years process to buy London’s most conservative daily broadsheet for £500 million ($1.01bn). The sale process was put in motion to tackle debts in excess of £1 billion ($2.028 bn) owed by The Telegraph’s owners, the billionaire Barclay twins, David and Frederick.

Should the sale receive the backing of the UK’s Labour government, it would be the biggest shake up to Fleet Street, the heartbeat of British news industry, since closure of Murdoch’s News of the World in 2011.

The British press could soon be even more concentrated.Credit: Getty

The sale further consolidates power and ownership of the British press, an industry dominated in its history by colourful barons and moguls. Now, there are two key figures with arguably greater influence than the once-dominant Rupert Murdoch, finding success with an ever more brash brand of right-wing journalism once pioneered by the ‘Dirty Digger’. The owner of the UK’s most storied left-leaning paper, The Guardian, sold its Sunday paper, The Observer to Tortoise Media in late-2024.

DMGT is currently owned and chaired by Lord Rothermere, the fourth Viscount Rothermere and a member of the House of Lords, the United Kingdom’s upper house. His family has controlled The Daily Mail for more than a century, dating back to the First Viscount Rothermere, now also owning free-daily tabloid Metro and the i Paper. Rothermere bought out the remaining shares in the company in 2022, taking it........

© The Sydney Morning Herald