GM Planworks SVP/Local Investment Director Kevin Gallagher made the announcement 2/8. The reps were called to a meeting and told that GM share deals would all be cancelled from Q2 on and that stations, not buyers, would then monitor pod violations. Said one industry source: "These moves lose GM multiple millions of ad time at a time when they need every dime they can get. In the local community the reps are out celebrating as are the stations."

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No word back yet from GM Planworks President Dennis Donlin or Gallagher.

GM, with their television station advertising partners in each market, have an annual share deal. The agreement is basically, "If you're going to get 26% of my money, these are my rates and I expect this much in bonus weight, etc.."

Said a major market NBC affiliate: "This arrangement has been going on since the beginning of time and it always got uglier and uglier...We always thought Starcom may end up being a more competent place to do this. There are a lot of issues that were starting to mount. The relationship between the client and the stations was getting adverse. It was getting to be a bad deal for the stations to take it. So they really needed to regroup. Because as much money as GM spends, the stations were getting ready to tell them to f&%# themselves. It's a very competitive, difficult environment for them and the stations-you've got two business having a tough time right now."

Said another industry source: "The local market is soft right now. If GM hadn't walked away, the stations would have kept on taking the deals. The stations, maybe to make it look on the up and up, will report a few pod violations a month. They just aren't going to pay attention to it anymore. If they sold it through to the client that 'you will gain efficiencies and pricing' because of this, there's no way they will gain the efficiencies to offset what they're walking away from."

The source added, "GM Planworks will push the stations to give them no charge weight on the buys, which is essentially what the share deals work out to be-a bank and other added value elements. I'm sure they will continue to push that in some cases, but it's not a real standing agreement with the stations anymore. At the end of the day, GM is probably going to end up with less than they're currently getting because of the share deals. It's a lock and a commitment for a year. They'll never be able to recreate that."

The first industry source added, "They're scared to say a word. Also, this change benefits the stations. Guess how many pod violations will be reported by local stations? GM stands to lose multiple millions of dollars. And since when was the excuse that this took too much of the buyers' time an excuse the client would accept?"

We asked TVB CEO Chris Rohrs: "This is the first I've heard of this. I was at Starcom two days ago and had lunch with one of the management people there and talked about what was going on. There was not a word of this."