(Daily Wire)—President Donald Trump’s top consumer protection and antitrust official has approved a massive $13.5 billion merger that will reshape the advertising industry, effectively putting the final nail in the coffin of coordination against outlets based on their political viewpoints.
The Federal Trade Commission announced Monday morning that it has decided not to block a merger between Omnicom and IPG, two rival firms which together make up a third of the world’s “Big Six” advertising agencies. But rather than rubber stamp the deal, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson extracted a major concession: the firms have agreed to cease all coordination related to viewpoint discrimination, refrain from any coordination in the future, and submit to strict compliance mandates.
Ferguson on Monday in his official statement on the decision said the firms have offered not only to cease coordination in any way that would steer advertising dollars away from publishers based on political viewpoints, but to cooperate with the FTC’s investigation into past collusion and submit to regular compliance reviews.
The FTC appeared poised to block the merger based on evidence of past “anticompetitive” coordination against conservative news organizations, an issue the commission is actively investigating. Ferguson on Monday pointed the finger at the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, better known as GARM, which was disbanded in controversy after it was caught directing ad dollars away from right-of-center outlets, including The Daily Wire.
“A Congressional investigation concluded that GARM banded together the most powerful firms in their industry to choke off the vital advertising revenue of those who disagreed with them,” Ferguson said in a Monday statement, adding that GARM aimed “to destroy publishers of content of which they disapproved.”
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