Ro
En
Рy
How the measurement company was selected?
Thus, the Tender Committee accepted, with 11 votes and one abstention, during the meeting of 15 March, the audience measurement company AGB Nielson as the company with which individual negotiations would be launched subsequently. The Broadcasting Council, in its turn, took note of that decision on 18 March and declared the tender closed.
The Chairman of the Tender Committee, Eugen Sarbu, explained at the meeting of 15 March that tender invitations were sent to other companies as well, such as GFK from Germany, but eventually they received a number of refusals, and the only bid came from the representatives of AGB Nielson. “We received a delayed response from Kantar. They said they had received the invitation later and, due to the holidays, failed to analyse the Regulations and technical offers”. After being given extra time and having studied the tender specifications, according to Eugen Sarbu, Kantar's representatives “said they were not interested”.
As to the request for involving foreign experts to develop the tender specifications and other tender issues, Eugen Sarbu stated that this was not done because of the lack of time and that in such a case the selection of the measurement company “could have extended until 2021”.
Regarding the involvement of foreign experts, BC Chair Dragos Vicol stated that such a prerogative “did not exist from the legislative perspective, but also because there was potential for solving such things in the Republic of Moldova”.
Tender Specifications developed by the Tender Committee Members
The tender specifications were developed by the Committee members, although in Romania, for example, according to PRO TV Chisinau, such documents are developed by international companies. PRO TV Chisinau stated that they offered to identify and ensure the funding of an expert to draw up the tender specifications for the tender in Moldova, but the Committee refused.
PRO TV Chisinau said also that they believed the audience company selection was done with serious deficiencies and announced its customers that it would not sell advertising based on the rating points measured by TV MR MLD, but it would carry out parallel measurements to be made available to trade partners.
PRO TV representatives recalled that a committee made up of the representatives of five TV stations dealt with the selection, four of which sell advertising through two sales houses accused of entering into a cartel agreement, five advertising agencies and two local customers.
The TV station stated that both Kantar from the United Kingdom and GFK from Germany expressed a strong interest in coming to Moldova. The companies would have refused to participate in the tender due to the limited time-frame of 30 days, whereby the invitation to participate was launched on 26 December 2018, when almost all European companies were on a Christmas holiday. PRO TV Chisinau said that the development and submission of bids takes usually up to half a year, as the statistical data and how to distribute the TV signal, as well as the specifics of TV consumption are studied.
Reaction of Jurnal Trust Media: ‘A Farce”
Jurnal Trust Media also reacted to how the audience measurement company was selected in Moldova. In an official statement the trust said that it disapproved how the measurement company was selected, including the fact that this company was selected by the representatives of the two sales houses accused last year of entering into a possible cartel agreement. ‘We note that the whole farce has started with the selection of the members of the Tender Committee, which included representatives of the two sales houses that we uncovered as cooperating between them to monopolize and share the advertising market between the media resources subservient to some parties and people who seized the power in our country, but also representatives of these media resources, while the free and independent stations were not able to participate in this structure’ Jurnal Trust Media said in a statement.
The media holding also noted, like PRO TV, that the conditions for participation in the tender were established without involving a specialist in the field, and the tender specifications included unrealistic conditions during the required period. ‘We find that the vitiation of the measurement company selection as well as the quality of this company leaves room for interpretation on the results of measurements to be made, given that serious doubts have previously existed,’ it is also indicated in the statement.
Under these circumstances, Jurnal Trust Media asked the Broadcasting Council to conduct an effective, transparent and fair competition to select a real measurement company whose founders were not in offshore areas.
Offshore Measurement Company
TV MR MLD Company is managed by Liuba Lozovanu-Balan, and it was registered in October 2003. According to the website agb.md, TV MR MLD is the official representative of AGB Nielsen Media Research.
At the same time, TV MR MLD is founded by a UK company - TV MR LLP - (100.00%). The records from the United Kingdom trade register confirm that TV MR LLP was founded by two offshore companies in Belize.
Who represents the Tender Committee?
The Tender Committee is a collegial body made up of 15 members with the right to vote, of whom: 5 representatives from 5 broadcasters that had the highest revenue from TV advertising in 2018, except for election advertising revenue; 5 representatives of 5 advertising agencies that had the highest revenue from TV advertising in 2018; 5 representatives of 3 local advertising clients who allocated the highest budget for TV advertising in 2018, and of 2 sales houses that earned the highest revenue from TV advertising in 2018, as well as 2 BCC members without the right to vote, as observers.
Media-azi has previously written that the representatives of the following TV broadcasters are among the nominated members of the Tender Committee - Prime, belonging to the leader of Democrats Vladimir Plahotniuc, Canal 3, owned by Oleg Cristal, his advisor, Exclusiv TV, owned by the Socialist MP Corneliu Furculita, and sales houses - Casa Media Corp, and Exclusiv Sales House, previously accused by other market players of the monopolization of advertising market.
About one year ago, PRO TV Chisinau, RTR-Moldova, Jurnal TV and TV 8 lodged a common complaint to Competition Council (CC), in which they accused Casa Media and Exclusive Sales House advertising sales houses of entering into a cartel agreement, thus using abusively their dominant position on the market. The two advertising companies denied this. Last year, the representatives of CC informed Media-azi.md that the authority was investigating the case.
