£40m TV licence brief up for pitch

The BBC has issued a tender for the &£10m above-the-line and &£30m below-the-line advertising business associated with the TV licence fees.

The above-the-line creative account is held by TBWA/London with the media buying through New Phd, while the below-the-line business is handled by OgilvyOne.

The tender is not limited to advertising and includes database management, revenue collection, customer servicing, sales and enforcement activities, payment processing and financial reporting and public relations.

Tracey Bunton, a BBC spokeswoman responsible for TV licensing, says the tender was called following the demise of the management unit Envision – a joint venture between Consignia, WPP Group and Bull Computing – at the end of March.

Envision managed all the contracts associated with TV licensing apart from the above-the-line creative account and the media buying associated with it.

She claims that “Envision did not meet two of its contractual targets,” but refuses to add details.

The BBC has now entered into interim contractual arrangements with WPP and Consignia directly, pending the outcome of the tender process.

The corporation is prepared to consider bids from providers able to offer individual services or all of them as a package.