Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Nataša Tešanović, Manager of ATV Banja Luka
In anticipation of candidate status for EU membership, Bosnia and Herzegovina is printing another absurd side of its everyday life; this is in fact about a kind of control of spending of over €20m in advertising money, which, instead of the market, in this small Balkan country is performed by none other than the state itself. The manner – admittedly – is a unique and original one, but the effects are same as those in China, the only country in the world where the ruling nomenclature determines which TV will be watched, and which not…
A little more than two years ago, the State Institute of Metrology declared itself in charge of issues of measuring TV audience. Its director, a senior official of the ruling Party of Democratic Action (SDA), then issued an order on standards in legal metrology and verification deadlines and the pertaining Annex in which, contrary to previous practice in BiH, but also contrary to common practice in neighboring countries and the EU, among the metrics of time which are subject to mandatory verification, they added the device for measuring TV ratings, the so-called peoplemeter. Although the unit for measuring audience is share and rtg, and by no means seconds or minutes, and although for this decision he had no foothold in the profession or in the law (the Decree was issued in violation of the rules and procedures laid down for its adoption), the Institute authorized Audience Measurement laboratory as the only one in the country that can verify devices for measuring TV ratings, ie. peoplemeters.
The latter in turn, verified its own devices, or more precisely the devices of the Agency with the same name and the same address, as the only proper ones to carry out these functions. The fraud was successfully implemented also thanks to the fact that behind the technology that was set as the only standard to measure audience was a name of a reputable company Nielsen. Their name and logo, almost two years later, AM (Audience Measurement) used in the official documents and thus deliberately deceived the public, who found out about the fraud only after some media questioned the whole story, and Nielsen officially and publicly denied having any connection with the BiH agency, except for the initial interaction: “In no way to we stand behind the data that the agency in Sarajevo delivers. We only sold them the technology,” said Alex Abbott, legal representative of Nielsen, after which some of the local TV stations finally stopped using Nielsen’s name as a source of information about the audience.
Pandora’s box was thus fully opened, and out of it a number of questions rained on the BiH public, accustomed to all sorts of shady actions: What kind of agency for measuring TV ratings is it, if not Nielsen? Who is behind it? Why is Bosnia and Herzegovina the only country in the region in which the TV ratings are not measured by reputable agencies like Nielsen, Kantar or GFK, but someone who registered for such activity just days before they got permission from the state (Sic !!!) to deal with it … This was followed by journalistic research endeavors of several national and regional media, and the answers they discovered were at the least shocking: the founder of the Agency Audience Measurement is an offshore company NMAM Ltd. registered in Cyprus, at the same address in which an owner of one of local TV stations is registered, or more precisely a TV network of which it is a leading member. The station in question is TV1, behind which apparently stands a controversial local businessman and politician Safet Oručević, former mayor of the city of Mostar, and now just a citizen with good connections in the judiciary and politics.
These connections allowed Oručević, despite obvious and proven conflict of interest, false representation and a constant setting of high ratings for his TV station, and TV stations with which he formed a sort of interest group (ie. Sales House), to smoothly take a huge part of the marketing pie, even after this sham was discovered.
Neither the fact that the Competition Council in March this year sanctioned the agency Audience Measurement for proven abuse of monopoly position in the market, nor the fact that even after six months the agency hasn’t paid the fine imposed on it, has “nudged” the state and judicial authorities to intervene in this obvious crime. Truth be told, the State Minister for Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, Mirko Šarović, in June this year publicly accused Zijad Džemić, director of the Institute for Metrology, that his illegal actions had caused damage to the domestic media industry, and announced annulling the harmful and illegal decision. A few months later, this item has not yet found its way to the agenda of the Council of Ministers of BiH and Minister reluctantly concluded that in this story there are “many parties involved”, forgetting that he is not a football referee or arbitrator in a dispute, but the man in charge to enforce the law of the country in which he was elected.
Thus the whole story got stuck where it began: in a state institution, without which – to make matters even more absurd – it’s not possible to open the space for normal market competition in which reputable audience measuring agencies would get involved. They actually don’t even dream of working in a country which conditions them with opening of some kinds of laboratories. Even less so to subject their devices to verification by competition. “It would be as if we were giving a Mercedes engine to BMW to verify it,” ironically noted one of the responsible people from the agency Kantar, when asked why they do not want to apply for jobs measuring TV ratings in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the meantime, Audience Measurement continues business as usual, as the state has allowed them: unprofessionally, arrogantly and non-transparently. They refused to deliver evidence of their ownership structure to the Competition Council – and nothing. They stubbornly continue to refuse to provide TV stations information on the structure and size of the sample, and the number and arrangement of peoplemeters, to which they are bound by contracts – and nothing. Every now and then they publish data with a delay, justifying it with weather conditions, errors in the system, even power failures … and still nothing! They act entitled to it! Advertising agencies are practically condemned to their data, because without research information they can’t perform tasks for their clients. TV stations on the other hand – even those that are obviously and brutally degraded and humiliated with measurements – for the purpose of cooperation with agencies have to buy research, by which they practically complicit in their own demise.
If it’s of some consolation, some international organizations and institutions, including the EU Office in BiH, have picked up interest in this Bosnian precedent which shakes the core values on which the European democracy rests: freedom of the press and the free market. Will it be enough to get things moving, and will some media get to see the effects of their engagement still standing, remains to be seen in the months ahead?