Poland's Agora faces new competition

One of Poland's leading newspaper publishers, Agora, is facing increasingly tough competition. When Germany's Axel Springer launched a rival to Agora's flagship national daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, last year it lost sales, slashed its cover price and launched a tabloid aimed at the lower end of the market, which closed after only three months. Agora's share price and the bottom line also took a battering, but just as it returns to profitability and Gazeta reports increased circulation once again, another German group, Verlagsgruppe Passau, looks likely to launch another national daily. (Via FT.com)