Did your business purchase a Television Spot Advertisement directly from a local television station between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2018?
Overview
Four settlements have been reached to resolve allegations that Broadcaster defendants committed illegal practices to restrain competition in the broadcast television spot advertisement market through the creation of artificially inflated prices.
You are likely a Settlement Class Member if your organization is one of the following:
· Advertising Company
· Creative Brand Advertising Agency
· Small Local Business
“Advertisers rely on competition among owners of broadcast television stations to obtain reasonable advertising rates, but this unlawful sharing of information lessened that competition and thereby harmed the local businesses and the consumers they served.” - Department of Justice
Settlement Fund: $48 million
Date Range: January 2014-December 2018
Filing Deadline: October 26, 2023
Class: Persons and entities that purchased Broadcast Television Spot Advertising directly from one or more Broadcaster Defendants in a designated market area within which two or more of the Broadcaster Defendants sold to broadcast television spot advertisements on broadcast television stations and you paid one or more Defendants directly for all or a portion of the cost of such broadcast television spot advertisements from January 1, 2014, to and including December 31, 2018.
Broadcast Television Spot Advertising: Advertising spots that run on a broadcast television channel or channels that use public airwaves to transmit programs available to any television set within the range of a broadcast transmitter or that are retransmitted via multichannel video programming distributors (“MVPDs”) such as cable, fiber optic networks, satellite, and virtual MVPDs.
Settling Defendants: Cox Media Group, LLC, Cox Enterprises, Inc., CMG Media Corporation (f/k/a Terrier Media Buyer, Inc. and d/b/a Cox Media Group), and Cox Reps, Inc. (collectively, “the Cox Entities”); Fox Corporation (“FOX”); CBS Corporation n/k/a Paramount Global (“CBS”); and ShareBuilders, Inc. (“ShareBuilders”).
These proposed Settlements are with these four Settling Defendants only and do not dismiss the claims against other defendants (“non-Settling Defendants”). The non-Settling Defendants, who deny all wrongdoing, remain in the case, and Plaintiffs’ lawsuit will continue against them.
Non-Settling Broadcaster Defendants: Dreamcatcher Broadcasting, LLC, Griffin Communications, LLC, Meredith Corporation, Nexstar Media Group, Inc., Raycom Media, Inc., The E.W. Scripps Company, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., TEGNA, Inc., and Tribune Broadcasting Company, LLC and Tribune Media Company.
Recommended Next Steps
Connect with your marketing department to determine if local television advertisement purchases were made directly to any of the Broadcaster Defendants.
If you are interested in MCAG filing a claim on your behalf, don't hesitate to contact us at 800-355-0466. We're here to help you maximize your recoveries with minimal effort. In the meantime, if you receive any class or settlement notices, please forward them to an MCAG representative for review, and we'll help you unlock your full recovery potential.
Register for MCAG's Settlement Recovery Service
Organizations who are not yet contracted with MCAG may contact one of our representatives to learn how to sign up for our Settlement Recovery Service. There are no upfront fees—MCAG aligns its incentives with yours and charges a percentage of any recoveries obtained on your behalf. If no money is recovered for your organization from the Settlement(s), then MCAG will not charge or retain a fee.
MCAG is not the Settlement/Class Administrator, and this is not the official settlement website.
Need more information? Call MCAG at 1-800-355-0466 to learn more or CLICK HERE to complete our contact form and an MCAG representative will respond shortly.
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Designated Market Area (“DMA”):
· AL: Birmingham (Anniston and Tuscaloosa); Dothan; Huntsville-Decatur-Florence
· AR: Ft. Smith-Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers; Little Rock-Pine Bluff
· AZ: Phoenix-Prescott; Tucson
· CA: Bakersfield; Fresno-Visalia; Los Angeles; Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto; San Diego;
San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose
· CO: Colorado Springs-Pueblo; Denver
· CT: Hartford-New Haven
· FL: Gainesville; Jacksonville; Miami-Ft. Lauderdale; Mobile-Pensacola (Ft. Walton Beach);
Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne; Panama City; Tallahassee/Thomasville; Tampa-St.
Petersburg-Sarasota; West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce
· GA: Albany; Atlanta; Augusta-Aiken; Columbus (Opelika); Macon; Savannah;
Tallahassee/Thomasville
· HI: Honolulu
· IA: Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City-Dubuque; Davenport; Des Moines-Ames; Sioux
City
· ID: Boise; Twin Falls
· IL: Champaign/Springfield-Decatur; Chicago; Rock Island-Moline; Peoria-Bloomington
· IN: Evansville; Indianapolis
· KS: Wichita-Hutchinson
· KY: Lexington; Louisville
· LA: Baton Rouge; Lafayette; New Orleans; Shreveport
· MA: Boston; Providence-New Bedford; Springfield-Holyoke
· MD: Baltimore
· ME: Portland-Auburn
· MI: Detroit; Flint-Saginaw-Bay City; Kalamazoo-Battle Creek; Lansing
· MN: Minneapolis-St. Paul
· MO: Kansas City; Paducah-Cape Girardeau-Harrisburg; St. Louis
· MS: Hattiesburg-Laurel; Jackson
· MT: Billings; Butte-Bozeman; Missoula
· NE: Omaha
· NC: Charlotte; Greensboro-High Point-Winston-Salem; Greenville-Spartanburg-
Asheville-Anderson; Raleigh-Durham
· NM: El Paso-Las Cruces
· NV: Las Vegas
· NY: Albany-Schenectady-Troy; Buffalo; New York; Rochester; Syracuse
· OH: Cincinnati; Cleveland-Akron (Canton); Columbus-Chillicothe; Dayton; Toledo;
Wheeling/Steubenville
· OK: Oklahoma City; Tulsa
· OR: Portland-Vancouver
· PA: Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York; Johnstown-Altoona-State College;
Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Wilkes-Barre-Scranton-Hazleton
· RI: Providence-New Bedford
· SC: Charleston; Columbia; Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville-Anderson; Myrtle Beach-
Florence
· TN: Greenville; Johnson City; Kingsport; Knoxville; Memphis; Nashville
· TX: Abilene-Sweetwater; Amarillo; Austin; Beaumont-Port Arthur; Corpus Christi;
Dallas-Ft. Worth; El Paso-Las Cruces; Harlingen-Weslaco-Brownsville-McAllen; Houston;
Lubbock; Odessa-Midland; San Angelo; San Antonio; Tyler-Longview-Lufkin-
Nacogdoches; Waco-Temple-Bryan; Wichita Falls-Lawton
· UT: Salt Lake City-St. George
· VA: Bristol; Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News; Richmond-Petersburg; Roanoke-
Lynchburg
· WA: Portland-Vancouver; Seattle-Tacoma; Yakima-Pasco-Richland-Kennewick
· Washington, DC
· WI: Green Bay-Appleton; Milwaukee
· WV: Charleston-Huntington; Wheeling/Steubenville
· VA: Roanoke-Lynchburg