Last month’s $72 billion marriage between cable titans AT&T Broadband and Comcast [WAMN: 20-Dec-01] leaves former AT&T agency New York-based Arnold McGrath with a kingsize hangover, forlornly contemplating the ashes of its five-year relationship with the cable operator. In the aftermath of the merger, its contract – said to be worth $40 million in annual billings - has not been renewed.
Nor is the future is certain for any the agencies orbiting the happy couple. Among those with most to gain – or lose – are AT&T’s Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners in New York and its sibling, The Media Kitchen; plus Comcast shops Red Tettemer in Narberth, Pensylvannia, (cable advertising) and Philadelphia-based Earle Palmer Brown (corporate ads).
Between them, reports CMR, AT&T advertised to the tune of $40 million in measured media in 2000, plus $55 million for the first eight months of 2001. Comcast was less liberal with the largesse, shelling-out a mere $50m over the same 21-month timescale.
News source: AdWeek.com
