AT&T will be issuing a request for proposals to the five incumbent agencies and the review is expected to be completed at the end of the year.
A spokesperson at AT&T said that the decision to consolidate all of the company's media planning and buying at one agency was because of a desire to "maximise efficiencies" created partly by AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth at the end of last year, which brought with it the rest of Cingular Wireless that the company had not already owned.
Currently, Omnicom's GSD&M handles media planning and buying for the telecom's landline business; Interpublic's Initiative handles media duties for the nine-state area of BellSouth; WPP Group's Mediaedge:cia does planning and buying for AT&T Wireless, formerly Cingular; Omnicon's OMD handles print for the wireless unit; and Publicis Groupe's Digitas handles wireless digital planning and buying.
Non-roster agencies are not being invited to pitch because the telecoms company feels that it has "a world-class group of agencies and we are pleased with their work" and just wants to "optimise our media assets under the single-agency model".
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