4A'S, AD BUYERS TO FIGHT ELEMENTS OF VIACOM DEAL; WILL DEVELOP STANDARD TO AID ANTI TRUST EXAM OF $36 BIL DEAL.

Advertising Age, September, 1999 by Teinowitz, Ira

Spurred by the breadth of the $36 billion Viacom/CBS deal, ad agency media buyers, working through the American Association of Advertising Agencies, are getting ready to fight significant elements of the merger.

Members of the Four A's media policy committee said last week the first task will be to develop a standard that can guide Justice Department anti trust scrutiny of the merger's ad implications, especially in the six markets where the deal would give Viacom two TV stations: Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Miami and Pittsburgh.

That still-to-be-devised standard would call for looking at the competitive impacts not just at the corporate level or station-by-station purchases in a geographic market, but of potential effects on individual...

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