During the Mexico 2013 panel entitled, “What does 2013 hold in store for marketing and advertising after most of the political and electoral unknowns have been answered?”, Santiago Durán, CEO of Carat, talked about how the recent departure of Televisa and TV Azteca from IBOPE will affect the industry in 2013.
On September 28th, Televisa and TV Azteca sent letters to Mexico’s Media Research Council (Consejo de Investigación de Medios) announcing their withdrawal as members of the association, after database information was leaked from the IBOPE AGB Mexico panel. This happened after the publication of very low ratings for both broadcast networks during the Olympics. TV Azteca had already announced changes to its rating-based system in June, accusing IBOPE of having destroyed the previous one.
According to Durán, the departure of TV Azteca and Televisa from the ratings measurement entity puts a serious question mark over the issue, because it is unknown whether big advertisers will want to advertise in media whose ratings are not verified by third parties.
Precedent in other Latin American countries
The current situation in the Mexican media market caused by the "Televisa-TV Azteca" duopoly has happened before in several Latin American countries. Durán compared it to a similar case in Colombia, where Caracol and RCN left the IBOPE ratings measurement institute. Some big advertisers, including Nestlé, pressured and demanded to receive verified ratings as a condition for their continued advertising. Citing this example, Durán said that "sooner or later we will have to return to a syndicated ratings system" in Mexico.
Durán also noted that the fact that Grupo Carso has withdrawn its advertising from Televisa and Television Azteca without losing market share, has led other companies to also re-evaluate the effectiveness of their advertising investment strategies.
