Cosy Cartel?

The media like nothing better than lambasting what they see as cartels in business. Thus banks, insurance companies, estate agents, doctors, lawyers etc etc have all come in for negative media coverage on a regular basis.

Imagine my surprise this week to discover that Ireland’s two largest dailies, The Irish Independent and the Irish Times, have both chosen to increase their cover price by 10 cents, to €1.60.

Both papers have effectively charged the same cover price for several years, matching each others price increases within a matter of weeks, if not days.

Pure co-incidence, I’m sure.