MEDIA FORUM: Does the market want a second London news war?

Are we going to see a dirty war between Express and Associated in London? If so, will that worry the advertising industry? Alasdair Reid reports.

It's not going to be pretty, that's for sure. Associated and Express Newspapers have already locked horns in court over the naming of Richard Desmond's proposed new London paper - and Associated has been granted an injunction banning Desmond from using the word 'Mail' in its title. As in the Evening Mail or the London Evening Mail. It is unlikely the injunction will stick, but it's clearly game on.

And, as ever when the London newspaper market gears up for another scrap (the last time was when Associated protected the Evening Standard against a possible Scandinavian invasion by launching Metro), memories tend to be evoked of the Mother of All Battles - Robert Maxwell's attempt to launch the London Daily News and the effectiveness of the Associated response.

It opted for a classic spoiler strategy - it relaunched a deliberately feeble version of the Evening News to confuse the market. And it worked a treat, especially when Associated backed this up with some robust tactics on the ground that meant thousands of copies of the Maxwell title never actually reached the newsstands.

It was dirty stuff. The Cosa Nostra would consider some of this behaviour ungentlemanly; it made the turf wars of crack dealers look like whist drives. Are we going to see it all over again? And how will advertisers and agencies react?

Roger Eastoe, the founder of the Roger Eastoe Associates publishing consultancy, has clear memories of the London Daily News battle - he was a Mirror Group director at the time. He thinks it could be similar this time around.

He says: 'Associated is genuinely concerned about Desmond muddying the waters for its paid-for title. It will take it seriously and has people there who managed the strategy when Robert Maxwell launched the London Daily News. The critical thing is distribution and that was one of the main reasons why the London Daily News was not successful.