Bids indicate a hectic year ahead

Well, not quite. In the last week alone, NTL has highlighted the idea of a multi-million pound merger with Virgin Mobile (page 16), ITV has confirmed that it could be paying up to £175m for the Friends Reunited network of web sites (page 15), and the Daily Mail & General Trust announced its purchase of the company behind Primelocation.com for £48m.

So, there is no evidence of a slow down, particularly if you are a media player trying to consolidate or build a new offering in the digital or online space.

Of the three bids, DM>'s move is - perhaps - the least surprising, coming as it does hot on the heels of News International's purchase of Propertyfinder.com for £14.3 m and Trinity Mirror's £50.5m acquisition of Hotgroup. In the last two years or so, DM> has been keen to buy to build its digital proposition - the proposed sale of its regional newspaper wing, Northcliffe, could grow its war chest for acquisitions even more.

ITV's ambitions to grow online - along with its multi-channeled digital portfolio - have been clear for a while, but the acquisition of Friends Reunited sharpens the focus somewhat. In the 'bad' old days of the first dotcom boom of the late 90s, one of the many mantras for online success referred to the three Cs of successful web sites: content, community and commerce. If this still holds true, ITV clearly produces content and Friends Reunited gives it access to one of the biggest and most successful online communities in the UK. As Ernst & Young's Guy Di Piazza points out in this issue, FR already turns a profit so ITV should have an opportunity to build commercial success.

In this context, NTL's bid is not only the biggest offer of the three but the least predictable. However, it makes sense when you look at the wider, so-called triple-play, market for combining telephony, television and internet services.

At the time of writing, Virgin's board has rebuffed the bid but the triple-play sector - with big beasts like BT and Sky involved - is only going to get busier in 2006.

All that is very well and good, but, in an industry like media, which is increasingly driven by consolidation issues, mergers and acquisitions are the hardest things to pull off successfully.

So, even if the strategy makes sense, the buyers will work hard to deliver on that promise.

This article was first published on Media Week