How woke capitalism could sink the mega-merger of ad giants Omnicom and Interpublic

The mega-merger of ad giants Omnicom and Interpublic will face more regulatory scrutiny than you think — and a key sticking point is smart capitalism, On The Money has learned.

Donald Trump isn’t in the White House yet, but the left in corporate America is already mad — and rightfully so. Paramount, for example, needs approval for a merger with Hollywood studio Skydance, but as I reported for The Post earlier this week, its left-leaning network CBS may run afoul of the Commission’s fairness provisions Federal Communications.

That, I’m told, is according to Brendan Carr, the incoming chief constable at the FCC, who will enforce a mandate on how local TV stations operate over the public airwaves (as opposed to cable). Carr believes the way CBS covered the 2024 presidential election was further evidence of its lack of “fairness” — as in providing both sides of any political debate, my sources tell me.

Likewise, ad agencies like Omnicom and Interpublic could face the same heat when they seek approval for their $25 billion merger when Trump regulators take over next year. A key issue is the agencies’ reliance on so-called news rating services that rank media outlets if they publish allegedly inappropriate content, such as misinformation.

These estimates, critics claim, are based less on real misinformation and more on left-wing groupthink. Next, ad dollars skew significantly to left-leaning news sites and networks, which brings us to the antitrust angle (which I’ll get into) that could affect the Omnicom-Interpublic deal, my sources say. of DC.

Many of the news organizations deemed safe by these services were outlets that labeled the real story of The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop as disinformation. Plus, it’s no secret that Madison Avenue is very smart.

That’s why conservative activists say ad agencies and corporate advertising departments seek political and regulatory cover to avoid news sites outside the progressive ecosystem of the New York Times, Washington Post and CBS. They will pay ratings services from outfits like NewsGuard to justify defunding conservative media, critics claim.

Specifically, Trump’s antitrust department, the Federal Trade Commission and the FCC are likely to scrutinize the Omnicom-Interpublic tie-up and demand answers about the agencies’ use of rating services, I’m told. Antitrust lawyers say a case can be made if you can prove there is collusion by appraisers to skew their ratings to appease leftists in the ad business.

“There has been case law that if you essentially engage in a group boycott that you could violate the antitrust laws,” said a D.C.-based antitrust attorney with ties to the incoming Trump administration. “All of these ad rating companies seem to rate conservative news sites lower, and ad agencies are known to hire leftists who would like to steer their business away from conservative media.”

Congress has held hearings on the ratings business and will likely do so again, I’m told. Some are already predicting that Trump’s people will block the Omnicom-Interpublic deal because of these clever advertising issues. Chris Ruddy, founder of the conservative Newsmax site, which has a desk at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, told On The Money: “I can tell you this deal is not going to happen if these companies rely on these assessment services”.

The people at the ratings companies say all they’re doing is providing a service to protect corporate clients who don’t want to be associated with fake news, or want to direct advertising dollars away from social media bot farms. And to be fair, I haven’t seen any direct evidence that there are undisclosed agreements to penalize right-leaning news organizations.

In a statement, NewsGuard told me that its ratings are “based on nine apolitical journalistic criteria using a transparent process with multiple layers of review and fact-checking. As a result of this nonpartisan and rigorous approach, there are more conservative sites with overall ‘trustworthy’ ratings in the NewsGuard database than liberal sites.

NewsGuard added that “Many conservative sites outnumber similar left-leaning brands — for example, FoxNews.com beats MSNBC.com, The Daily Caller beats The Daily Kos, the Washington Examiner beats the New York Times and National Review beats Mother Jones. Heritage Foundation and CATO Institute.”

Gordon Crovitz, CEO of NewsGuard, told me in an interview that any rating above 60 is on the company’s “inclusion list” for advertisers and others who use the service. “Fox News and the NY Post benefit from our ratings,” he added.

But On The Money has reviewed the rankings and found some strange results. For example, the New York Post received a 69.5 out of 100 rating from NewsGuard, which called out The Post for “headlines that attract attention and gossip” and for advancing “inaccurate and misleading claims about politics.”

Newsmax got a 20 out of 100, even though its website mostly runs wire copy from Reuters and the AP, people there tell me. The Federalist, well-respected in right-leaning political circles, scored 12.5. Fox News received a 69.5 rating because it “generally maintains basic standards of trustworthiness and transparency — with notable exceptions.”

Conversely, The New York Times — which for years has delivered a steady dose of Trump-Russia collusion fake news — scored a perfect 100 out of 100. That is, until last February, when its rating its down to a still strong 87.5. The Washington Post, which is literally bleeding readers because of leftist bias and credibility problems, also received a perfect 100 score.

Al Jazeera English, which receives funding from the Qatari government and has been credibly accused of anti-Israel bias in its fight against Hamas, received 82.5 because it “mainly adheres to basic standards of credibility and transparency.”

So stay tuned.