Broadcasters Settle Pricing-Fixing Claims

Cox Media Group LLC, Fox Corp and CBS Corp have agreed to pay a combined $48 million to resolve civil antitrust claims in U.S. Court that accuse them of a conspiracy to artificially fix the prices of spot advertising on broadcast television.

Reuters reports Cox has agreed to pay $37 million to settle class-action claims brought on behalf of an advertising company and a small heating and cooling business, the plaintiffs' lawyers said in a filing on Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Fox will pay $6 million, and CBS, now known as Paramount Global, will pay $5 million, the court filing showed. Both companies reached deals in late 2021, but the terms were not immediately revealed then.

Cox, CBS and Fox agreed to cooperate in the plaintiffs' ongoing litigation against other major television station owners and operators that were also accused of participating in the conspiracy but have not settled.

The deal is subject to approval by U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall in Chicago federal court.

Other defendants in the litigation include Sinclair Broadcasting Group Inc, The E.W. Scripps Company and TEGNA Inc. Representatives from those defendants either declined to comment on the pending litigation or did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

None of the three companies are admitting any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, but all three have agreed to cooperate with ongoing lawsuits against other broadcasters who are still being sued by the plaintiffs. Those broadcasters include Nexstar Media Group, the E. W. Scripps Company and TEGNA.

The case was brought in 2018 by a consortium of local businesses who argued the broadcasters conspired together to artificially inflate the price of spot advertisements. Those ads run anywhere from 15 seconds in length to a full minute, with the average ad lasting approximately 30 seconds. Inventory is typically sold in bulk, with companies agreeing to purchase multiple spot ads at once that are broadcast over a period of time.

The plaintiffs in the case include a heating and air conditioning company in Alabama, an advertising agency in Minnesota and an Ohio home furnishing business, among others.

The initial complaint brought by the group said broadcasters illegal shared sensitive commercial information with one another in an attempt to drive up the cost of advertising inventory beyond a fair market rate. The group says the practice violated Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, as well as various state and federal laws.

Kendall is presiding over cases that were consolidated in her court by the U.S. judiciary's multidistrict litigation panel. The judge in 2020 denied the defendants' early bid to dismiss the claims, in a ruling that said broadcaster defendants own 688 revenue-generating TV stations in total.

The plaintiffs' lawyers said they would seek about $16 million in legal fees, or 33%, from the settlement fund.