The TNS/4As row in Singapore has all the hallmarks of the classic industry dispute. Wronged parties, a breakdown in communication and clients looking on, bemused. Reports from both sides confirm that a resolution is nearing, which will be good news for MediaCorp TV, the sole broadcaster in Singapore's print-heavy marketplace. The dispute exploded in March of this year, when the 4As media committee determined that it would not shoulder a share of the cost of TNS' ratings data, as requested by TNS. TNS responded by cutting off the information flow, charging that agencies cannot expect to keep receiving the data for free. At press time, the 4As confirmed negotiations with TNS were ongoing, now that agency concerns have been addressed.
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1 TNS is basing its position on other Asian markets. In many of these, media agencies pay some proportion of the cost of producing the ratings data. In fact, there appear to be very few markets where agencies do not pay for the data. "As far as I am aware there is no market in Asia where the agencies do not pay for the ratings data," says TNS Singapore MD Phillip Jones.
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2 The fact that agencies have not paid for the data since 2000 is down to a uniquely Singaporean quirk. When Singapore Press Holdings launched MediaWorks in 2000, each broadcaster assumed the costs of the ratings data — to ensure that agencies would receive all the relevant information on the competing offers. Thus, MediaWorks assumed the cost of the Nielsen data, while MediaCorp paid for TNS' data.
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3 Fast-forward to 2006 and MediaWorks is now defunct, following the MediaCorp-SPH merger in 2004. Only TNS ratings data still exists in the market so, in TNS' view, it's time to return to the pre-2000 days, when agencies paid for the data.
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4 The costing structure that has been proposed by TNS varies according to agency size but essentially ranges from S$20,000 to S$50,000 (US$12,600 to $31,600) per year. This, according to TNS, accounts for approximately 10 per cent of the data cost. About 75 per cent is borne by MediaCorp.
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5 The 4As media committee, meanwhile, has responded by closing ranks. Headed by Initiative Singapore MD Julie Tilley, agencies claim they have not been consulted about the research metholodogy and tender. It notes that agencies and media houses may co-pay for ratings data in other developed markets in Asia, but in those markets, the industry works together with TV broadcasters to formulate the metholodogy and collectively award the tender. "Unfortunately, this was not the case for Singapore when MediaCorp put out the tender in 2005 to ACNielsen and TNS, and made the decision to award TNS," says Tilley. "Recently, MediaCorp and TNS agreed to some transparency about the details and, in an effort to resolve the impasse, the 4As is
negotiating costs on behalf of its members."
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6 TNS, meanwhile, points out that agencies do not always have input into the design of the service. In this case, it argues further, agencies have had input from 2001 to the end of 2005, with the same specification being used in 2006.
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7 In the interim, clients have been unable to receive accurate TV ratings to forecast TV adspend. Instead, media agencies can provide them with some basic viewership statistics, sourced from MediaCorp. These include ratings data across 10 demographic sets, which Tilley terms "sufficient for the short-term". Samsung regional marketing and strategic planning director Edwin Koh points out that the impasse does not benefit anyone. "As a client, we need to have as much data as we can," says Koh. "We will still spend on TV but we will have to evaluate it more closely — it slows things down."
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8 MediaCorp, unsurprisingly, has come out behind TNS. The broadcaster responded sharply to Nielsen's report that TV adex dipped by 18 per cent in 2005, and a closer look at that reveals that the decrease was caused primarily by a pullback in bonus airtime. 2006 figures, meanwhile, show a 3.6 per cent year-on-year increase on television adex for the first four months of the year, which is likely to be boosted even further by the World Cup.
