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Bankruptcy at General Motors Corp. (GM) deals another blow to the media industry just as negotiations are set to begin for TV networks seeking to sell the majority of their inventory for the new programming season this fall.

Ad markets have been weakening throughout the financial crisis and economic downturn, and while GM's bankruptcy was widely predicted, the company's bankruptcy filing provides more details about the financial strain the process could bring to Madison Avenue.

Starcom Mediavest Group Inc., owned by ad giant Publicis Groupe S.A. (PUBGY), is listed as GM's sixth-largest creditor - ahead of GM parts supplier Delphi Corp. (DPH) - with $121.5 million worth of exposure to the bankruptcy. Publicis also was listed separately as a creditor, owed $25.2 million.

Starcom is GM's ad-buying agent, and the firm has apparently spent a bundle on the automaker's behalf that may not be paid back, depending on how bankruptcy court proceedings unfold.

Jill Kelly, a spokeswoman for Starcom, declined to comment.

The filing says GM owes $4.6 million to McCann Erickson, a unit of Interpublic Group (IPG), and $15.9 million to its parent, which lost business from GM to Starcom in 2005 but still handles some nontraditional marketing efforts for the automaker, like event planning.

Interpublic Chief Executive Michael Roth recently said his company could have as much as $150 million in exposure to a GM bankruptcy in a worst-case scenario, so the automaker's filing paints a far brighter picture, but an internal source at the company said the exposure is larger than GM disclosed.

"We have been very direct in identifying and addressing the potential implications this decision could have on our business," an Interpublic spokesman said in an emailed statement.

The company has said before that no single client makes up more than 5% of its total revenue. Last month, Interpublic negotiated new terms with its lenders to preserve access to a three-year credit line for $335 million in the event that any of its clients file for bankruptcy.

The ad giant's shares fell 1.5% Tuesday to $5.44.

Despite its insolvency, GM will continue to spend ad dollars with an eye toward its future as it struggles to counter the negative public perceptions that go along with bankruptcy and bailouts from the federal government. The company has launched a new 60-second ad spot that can be viewed on GMReinvention.com and will air on early morning and late-night TV starting Wednesday, as well as some prime-time programming on major networks.

Deutsch, another firm owned by Interpublic, produced the spot, and McCann Erickson will launch radio and print components to the same campaign, including an open letter assuring consumers that GM will continue to honor its warranties and service customers in bankruptcy.

"We're not the first company that's gone through bankruptcy," says Mark LaNeve, vice president of sales for GM, in the commercial, which is already posted on YouTube and other sites. "Most of the airline industry did, most of the railroad industry did - they still carried customers and carried freight. We're still going to build cars and take care of our customers the way we always have."

Kelly Cusinato, a spokeswoman with GM, declined to comment on the cost of the automaker's post-bankruptcy ad effort.

"We felt that some TV and print ads were necessary to communicate, in mass, to our customers, in a quick and timely manner," Cusinato said. "The media we used for this campaign was inventory that we already owned and obligations we had to honor. Furthermore, we kept production costs to a bare minimum by using existing footage and images."

GM's pullback in marketing has been particularly hard on local TV and print publications that depend on ad spending from GM dealerships for a portion of their revenue. National print publications and TV networks are also suffering from a slowdown in auto advertising as well as other categories, like retail and finance. Analysts expect preliminary ad buys from TV networks for the fall to be down around 15% from last year.

"The negotiations will be slow to get going as ad agencies are in no rush to spend money this year," said Jordan Breslow, director of research at MediaCom. "In the end, though, the ad dollars will come."

-By Nat Worden, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5216; nat.worden@dowjones.com