• by Joe Mandese , January 31, 2008

GroupM, the media agency holding company within the WPP agency holding company, has reorganized the local broadcast operations of its three major U.S. agency brands: Mediaedge:cia, MediaCom and MindShare, consolidating them into two new teams dubbed Team Matrix and Team Motion, respectively. Significantly, the units will operate under the GroupM banner, suggesting that the WPP unit is moving away from a hands-off management approach to becoming an active media services brand.

The reorganization, announced this morning by GroupM Chief Investment Officer Rino Scanzoni, will create two teams operating independently of each other with separate personnel, management, and offices in order to assure client confidentiality and avoid potential account conflicts involving over $1 billion in local broadcast media billings. The structure is also designed to attend to the regional needs of specific clients serviced by each team.

Team Matrix will have offices in New York, Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles, while Team Motion will operate out of New York, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

GroupM has raided Optimedia Director of Local TV and Radio Investments Ellen Drury, who will serve as president of Team Matrix. Rebecca Rogers, currently director of local automotive broadcast in Mediaedge:cia's Irvine, California office, was named president of Team Motion. Both local broadcast chiefs will be based in New York and will report to Scanzoni.

The announcement made no mention of Kathy Crawford, the influential local broadcast chief at MindShare. The announcement also made no reference to any impact on GroupM's fourth media services brand, Maxus.

"These moves will not be fully functional until midsummer," said a MindShare spokesman, "and until that time Kathy remains in charge of MindShare's local broadcast unit.

"After the transition is completed, Kathy will move into a new, senior role at the executive level overseeing MindShare's clients and GroupM's initiatives in local broadcast. She will also continue working on her long-standing efforts regarding the advancement of electronic data initiatives in the local broadcast industry, working with the [American Association of Advertising Agencies] in that regard and on any other projects related to that goal."