Advertising rules could hit Irish press income

The demise of the Belfast-based Daily Ireland newspaper was rightly blamed on its failure to attract government advertising. Now comes a shock for the three main papers in the north of Ireland. John Murray Brown reports in the Financial Times that the steady income generated by government recruitment advertising in the Belfast Telegraph, the Irish News and the News Letter is threatened by an overhaul of public sector advertising rules. Under a new tendering process, media owners have been asked to pitch for business without previous guarantees of securing advertising. (Via Financial Times)