The ratings committee will meet on Thursday to decide whether to publish a new tender.
Sources inform ''Globes'' that just three days before the television ratings tender is decided, The Nielsen Company announced that it will participate, if a new tender is published. The ratings committee will probably thoroughly consider this option because TNS Israel Ltd. unit Tele-Gal Israel Rating Company Ltd. is the only bidder in the current tender.
Last week, The Nielsen Company CEO David Calhoun and Nielsen Online CEO Itzhak Fisher visited Israel. One of issues they raised was the tender, and they decided in principle to participate in a new tender, if one was published.
As "Globes" reported, the tender committee will decide the television ratings tender on Thursday. The committee will discuss at its upcoming meeting the joint bid of Tele-Gal and TNS plc (LSE: TNS). Tele-Gal is asking for NIS 10 million a year, NIS 3 million more than the rating committee currently pays the company. In the new tender, Tele-Gal is offering to buy new equipment that will raise its current service costs.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 11, 2008
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