Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Neo Advertising and POSTV, together at last

I can probably imagine how it happened... Neo put on a little Barry White, lit a fire, maybe opened a bottle of the bubbly. Then it popped the question: will you merge with me?

As Adrian and Dave had pointed out, the merger of Neo Advertising and POSTV represents the first large network M&A to happen in Europe. Given that their technical underpinnings (Broadsign) and business models (ad-funded retail networks) are similar, the roll-up makes a lot of sense, and in fact if it goes well I'd fully expect them to continue on with more in the future.

The merged entity will have a European footprint that encompasses the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, giving them an excellent reach across the continent. Whether that will impact ad sales remains to be seen, as does any synergistic potential (I could see reductions in operational expenses perhaps, but the people who buy screen time in an electronics store probably aren't going to be too interested in grocery). That'll be the part I look forward to learning more about.

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