India is buyers market. In 2015, the ad spend was Rs. 47,500 crore. A bulk of this passed through the hands of seven large communications group — WPP, Publicis, Interpublic, Omnicom, Dentsu, Madison and Havas. Each of them is vertically and horizontally integrated. Together, they have a stranglehold over the biggest advertisers. For instance, WPP owns JWT, O & M, Group M, Mindshare, and dozens of firms in design, advertising and so on.

On the sellers’ side, there are more than 800 news channels, over 1 lac publications, thousands of web sites. It is a fragmented hyper-competitive mess.

In the US, there are accusations that media suppliers, that is, print, TV and digital pay rebates to agencies, or affliated firms which are not passed on to the advertiser. In India, there are stories of corruption in media buying. It is routine for planners or buyers to demand and get anything.