Ad honcho: AT&T can break Google and Facebook’s duopoly

The head of the world’s largest media-buying shop said on Thursday he hopes federal regulators demand “significant divestitures on both sides” before approving AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner.

But GroupM boss Irwin Gotlieb, who controls $100 billion in global client spending, said the impact of the mega-merger “will bring more benefits than downsides for my clients.”

Gotlieb, speaking at the Video Everywhere Summit in Manhattan, didn’t specify which assets he’d like to see hived off.

The executive, in an interview with The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta, said one of the selling points of the deal is targeted advertising. For instance, telecom giant AT&T can get more data on who’s watching what shows — and where.

The mega-merger between the distributor and the content company is not a surprise, said Gotlieb, who hopes it will help break the Google-Facebook digital ad duopoly. The two Silicon Valley firms control around 80 percent of all digital dollars.

“It’s going to be a new game five years from now,” said Gotlieb who urged more traditional players to collaborate more closely.

“The space race for data and technology has already been won by two players,” he said. “Google and Facebook built the biggest media businesses in the world… It’s time for a different attitude.”