Less than a week after denying bankruptcy rumors that caused the stock price of French conglomerate Thomson SA to plummet 15%, the company has moved aggressively to sell off its cinema advertising unit Screenvision. Industry chatter that the Thomson subsidiary has entered talks to merge with its chief competitor, National CineMedia (NCM), may turn out to be more than just rumor and speculation. That is if you believe USA Today, which published a story about the potential merger on Monday.
A merger between Screenvision and NCM seems unimaginable, if not impossible, given the two firms majority share of the North American cinema advertising business. Surely there will be some regulatory group that will object to having only one company control most of the profitable advertising placement in the country’s leading movie theatres. This issue didn’t escape USA Today either who quoted Lazard Capital Markets Analyst Barton Crockett as saying:
“I’m not sure that (a combination) is possible from an antitrust perspective. It would affect some advertisers, studios and independent theater chains that like to play those two (companies) against each other.”
Entries RSS
