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Article: Publicis gobbles up Bcom3: Merger gathers media buyers Starcom, Zenith and Optimedia under one umbrella. (Top of the Week).(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Broadcasting & Cable
- Article date:
- March 11, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. (US). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The media-buying universe got a little smaller last week with the merger of the sixth- and seventh-largest adagency holding companies, Parisbased Publicis and Chicagobased Bcom3, respectively, for a little more than $3 billion.
Publicis is the surviving company and becomes the fourthlargest agency holding company in the world (behind Interpublic, WWP and Omnicom) but the second-ranked media-buying concern (behind Interpublic).
The merger would put under common ownership Chicagobased media buyer Starcom MediaVest, a unit of Bcom3, and both Zenith and Optimedia, the media-buying units of Publicis.
The combined national TV billings of Publicis and ...