• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 18, 2004

The sun apparently will not set on a British media empire. Zenith Optimedia Group, the first and still the largest U.K.-based unbundled agency media buying service, will continue to be run by a Brit, parent Publicis Group announced Thursday morning.

Steve King, a young, ambitious and personable executive who was part of the original team that made history in 1988 when agency juggernaut Saatchi & Saatchi spun off its media operations into a freestanding media unit, has been named to replace John Perriss as CEO of Zenith Optimedia Group.

The announcement dashes speculation that the media giant might be helmed by a U.S.-based media executive. Rich Hamilton, CEO of Zenith Americas, and Mike Drexler, CEO of its Optimedia unit, had been rumored as possible candidates. Instead, both will report to King, who ironically was also the executive who handled the original assessment that led to the creation of Zenith USA in 1995. He ultimately was named general manager and chief operating officer of the U.S. unit until he was tapped to become CEO of Zenith's operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, his most recent position.

King started in the media buying business in 1982 at Bates Dorland, a London-based shop that was one of the precursors to the modern Zenith Optimedia operation, which now has 4,000 employees traversing 162 offices in 59 countries. It ranked as the sixth largest media buying organization with worldwide media billings of $16.15 billion, according to RECMA and Advertising Age estimates for 2002, the last year for which data was published.

The announcement also appears to end speculation that there would be an imminent integration between Zenith Optimedia and its sibling Publicis media network Starcom MediaVest Group, which ranks No. 1, according to RECMA.

Publicis insiders tell MediaDailyNews that while it is likely Publicis would form a new media network holding company unit - a la WPP's Group M, or Interpublic's Magna - SMG and Zenith Optimedia would continue to operate as freestanding units for the foreseeable future.

If anything, they note that the recent trend is toward creating new, even more differentiated media network to compete for new business and to deal with potential client conflicts.