Antitrust concerns could slow media news' bid for L.A. Times: Justice Department would consider alternatives and geography.

William Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group owns eight newspapers that ring downtown Los Angeles, and with reports of the company talking to Tribune Co.--owner of the Los Angeles Times--about purchasing assets, the group could buy the center of the doughnut, too.

But the buyout could run afoul of antitrust regulators, according to Ted Bolema, a former attorney with the Justice Department's Antitrust Division and now a professor at Central Michigan University. "I would expect that this transaction is likely to attract a challenge from my former agency." he said.

According to Bolema, the Justice Department looks at two aspects of a newspaper deal: the geographic overlap between the merging papers' markets and the availability of alternatives. They consider the market for both newspaper subscribers and advertisers.

Earlier this year, Justice looked at the potentially monopolistic effects of MediaNews' purchase of two Northern California papers, the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times. Media News already owned the Tribune and Alameda Times Star in Oakland. leaving the Hearst Corp.'s San Francisco Chronicle the only significant competition.

Nonetheless, the Justice Department approved the deal. noting "MediaNews will continue to lace competition for the sale of newspapers and newspaper advertising in the East Bay."

But the Los Angeles situation is different because two MediaNews properties, the Daily News in Woodland Hills and Press-Telegram in Long Beach, have significant circulations. "This one raises different issues because Singleton is a more direct competitor to the Times," Bolema said.

The decision would become more even more complex if Media News were to purchase the South Bay Daily Breeze, which Copley Press Inc. is selling and Singleton is known to covet.

If regulators find too much overlap and too little alternatives for consumers or advertisers, they could nix the deal or, more likely, require the divestiture of one of more newspapers. That solution worked earlier this year in the Minneapolis market when the

McClatchy and Knight-Ridder merger would have nearly eliminated local competition.

As for the argument that the Internet and electronic media negate the effects of a print monopoly, the Justice Department doesn't buy it. "I think they're sticking with the definition that newspapers are a distinct market and the Internet is not a good enough substitute--at least not yet," Bolema said.