Ad Firm Replaces CEO After Congressional Face-Off With Ben Shapiro On Censorship

Advertising monolith GroupM announced Wednesday that CEO, Christian Juhl will step down, one week after Juhl was grilled by lawmakers on an alleged scheme to punish conservative news outlets by withholding advertisements.

“After five years the time is right for a fresh challenge, and I’m excited to get started in my new role,” Juhl said in an announcement, which said he will become president of corporate development for GroupM parent company WPP.

On July 10, Juhl and Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro both testified to the House Judiciary Committee on whether private companies are colluding to blackball conservative media outlets for not echoing the government line on topics like the COVID lab leak theory.

Emails obtained by the committee indicate that GroupM’s Executive Vice President of Global Brand Safety, John Montgomery, plotted to withhold advertising from The Daily Wire because of the site’s politics, even though it did not have any evidence the Wire engaged in “misinformation.” To do that, it worked with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which Republicans say operates as a cartel that gets competing advertisers to deny business to certain outlets. GroupM is part of GARM’s “steer team.”

Joe Barone, GroupM’s Managing Partner Brand Safety Americas, wrote that “We have Daily Wire on our Global High Risk exclusion list, categorized as Conspiracy Theories.”

When Rob Rakowitz, GARM’s leader, asked Montgomery about The Daily Wire, Montgomery wrote: “There is an interesting parallel here with Breitbart. Before Breitbart crossed the line and started spouting blatant misinformation, we had long discussions about whether we should include them on our exclusion lists. As much as we hated their ideology and bulls**t, we couldn’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion. We watched them very carefully and it didn’t take long for them to cross the line.”

When Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) asked Juhl “What ideology of Daily Wire and Breitbart does your company hate exactly?” Juhl paused before saying “Um, it’s not an ideology they’re talking about.”

Moore replied, “He said ‘we hated their ideology’ in quotes.”

“I think that’s an individual viewpoint that he was espousing, it’s not the firm’s decision, it’s not GroupM’s position, and I can’t speak for GARM directly,” Juhl responded.

Shapiro pointed out that the email said “we,” not “I.”

Montgomery went on to say in the emails: “I don’t know The Daily Wire that well, but I imagine most of our clients wouldn’t want to be on either side of politically divisive content, so they probably block them anyway.”

“We should watch them carefully to make sure they don’t stoop below the GARM floor. If we block DW – why wouldn’t we blocking [sic] Fox News?”

None of GroupM’s clients advertised with The Daily Wire, Juhl said. The executive claimed all GroupM clients made their own advertising decisions, even though the emails suggest that their ad broker was steering them.

Juhl claimed in his testimony that advertisers simply don’t want their products to be near “divisive” content that could alienate audiences.

But advertisers’ definition of “divisive” doesn’t seem to include left-wing politics that drive away conservative customers. Bud Light, for instance, did not appear worried that it would alienate drinkers when it tapped transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, a man who thinks he is a woman, as a spokesman.

Brian Lesser, who served as North America CEO of GroupM from 2015 to 2017, will take the helm at GroupM, the announcement said.

In Shapiro’s opening statement, he said “there is, in fact, an informal pressure system created by Democratic legislators, this White House, legacy media, advertisers, and pseudo-objective ‘brand safety’ organizations. That system guarantees that advertising dollars flow only to Left-wing media brands.”