• by Joe Mandese , March 1, 2004

Despite a handful of relatively high-profile media account reassignments, 2004 so far is shaping up to be one of the least volatile years of media account volatility. Through the first two months of the year, only $960 million in gross advertising billings have changed media services agencies. That's markedly below the rate of media account turnover of the previous two years, according to estimates released Monday by Media Analysis Plus, a media auditing and consulting firm that began monitoring public accounts of media account shifts in 2002.

MAP estimates that media account turnover is down 13 percent from the first two months of 2003, which itself was down 54 percent from the first two months of 2002. And while the rate of media billings shifts accelerated in February ($572 million) from January ($390 million), MAP CEO Jim Surmanek says that was driven almost entirely by only two accounts.

"DirecTV and Masterfoods, had a major impact on the month of February," says Surmanek, noting, "Without those, just over $100 million in billings would have shifted among agencies." Early in the month of February, Masterfoods consolidated its $300 million account at MediaVest. At the end of the month, DirecTV made a surprise consolidation of its advertising account, moving its media to Omnicom's OMD (from MediaVest) and creative to BBDO (from Deutsch).

January-February Media Account Turnover

 Billings Vs. Prior Year  
2004 $0.96 billion -13%  
2003 $1.10 billion -54% 
2002 $2.40
billion NA 

Source: Media Analysis Plus' MAP Barometer. Based on a compilation of publicly reported media account shifts of $10 million or more.