TMC hits top three with 80m fillip
The Media Centre has moved into the top three of the 1996 media billings league table, ousting BMP DDB, according to Register-MEAL figures released this week.
The agency finished 1996 with total billings up 80m from 277m in 1995 to 357m – a 29 per cent rise. The increase is down to large account wins including the 18m Barclays business last year (MW June 21 1996) and the 6.5m Packard Bell account secured in November.
Zenith Media remained in top position, finishing with a total of 553m for 1996 – a fall of 6.9 per cent from the 1995 billings figure of 591m.
TMD Carat is second with 401m, including billings from its other interests Eurospace, TMD Direct and TMD Carat Media Dynamics.
The 1996 figure was a jump of 3.7 per cent on its 1995 billings of 386m.
TMD Carat new business director Lawrence James says actual billings will be boosted to 447m since last month’s merger with YMG Carat.
The top 20 billings for 1996 totalled 4.2bn, up more than 5.3 per cent on the 1995 figure of 3.9bn.
BMP DDB finished fourth with billings of 269m, followed by four agencies separated by only 5m: CIA Medianetwork with 232m; Mediapolis’ combined total of 230m for the merged Mediastar and Young & Rubicam; the merged Pattison Horswell Durden and Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO at 228m; and Initiative Media at 227m.
Universal McCann came ninth with a spend of 218m, while MediaCom was number ten at 211m.
