ABACUS the company with minimal
turnover manipulates the TV market

While the online media threatens the survival of the traditional media, journalists become target of the politicians and the public opinion doubts about the information credibility, another scandal has involved media’s world: the manipulation of TVaudience. This is a sector abandoned to the mercy of a total anarchy without any rule, nevertheless its vital importance, as related to the measurement of the audience often depends even advertisment investments of big companies.   

TV audience is measured through a sophisticated human and technological system that needs big skills and even bigger investments. Than tha data gathered is selled to the publicity investitors, to show them which TV’s has the biggest audience, in order for them to know where to focus their advertisement investments. In big Western countries, this delicate phase of audience research, undergoes to strict laws and controls from the state, to avoid the market manipulation and the unfair damage of free competition. Obviously, it happened like this anywhere, with the exeption of Albania.     

In the Albanian market, where dosen’t exist a law to regulate the sector, there are two companies that operates in this field, but one of them seems to work in a very suspicious way. A deep investigation conducted by Shqiptarja.com has realised that it’s about a company, that has never done even the minimal necessary investment to make possible the audience measurement, nevertheless it continues to manipulate TV’s market, deceiving agencies and advertisement customers that pays to it, while no state institution has intervened until this moment. The name of the company is Abacus shpk and, regardless of its large presence on the market, in fact it seems to be an empty box. 

The company from 2012 and so on has shared adudience measruements, not only without making no technological investment, but even without having any employee. From the data gathered by Shqiptarja.com at Taxes Office it results that Abacus shpk company has a capital of only 800 euro, has just one employee, zero investments on technology and declares income of les then 10.000 euro per year.

Despite of this, its pretend that does audience measurements on all the country territory, giving results on what 2.5 milion Albanians watch; that has installed a network of more then 1.000 descovering devices in the same number of families, and that produces every day a report, which it pretends that measures the share of dozens of TV channels (from the big national TVs, to the small local channels) and of all the customers of Digitalb and Tring.

“If you look the table of the TV audience, it seems everything normal. I belive that that’s the factor that could manipulate those who read it: on reaity on the table it is not clear where the data cames from and even how they were elaborated – says an IT expert, that has read on of the reports on the audience, selled by Abacus. – The fact is that the key factor in an audience measurement system it’s the realiability of the data gathered.

To be credible, this data should have behind them a big company, with a lot of technology specialists, a very huge data base for the collection and elaboration, an expensive demografic study to focus on the right sample of families that would be monitored, a huge network of internet connections between the central server and the 1.000 families involved on the reaserch, and especially a huge investment on technology. All of this needs very high costs that should be reflected on the company’s balance sheet”.

But Abacus shpk does not declare anything of all of this in its balance sheets. On contrary, its balances show ridiculos numbers, less of those of a corner shop that sells bananas. Ther are not shown investment cost, staff costs, they have no costs for the manteinance of internet connections and the only important cost is the one of the central office on the main boulevard of Tirana. From every point of view, its fully looks liak a ghost company. Anyway, a company, that works like an empty box, risk to manipulate an advertisement market, which circulates tens of millions of euros. 

Data of its balance   

Abacus shpk company was founded on november 2011. For the year 2012 (it’s its first balance published after its foundation) it results to have done ZERO investments. The company shows to have not employed, as the staff costs for all the year its only 144.000 lekë (it means that it has payed salaries of 12.000 lekë per month).

On 2013, Abacus has not showed int its balance any transaction: no revenues, no staff costs, no investments (its activity for all 2013 its suspended). On 2014, Abacus shpk is still active and shows on its balance revenues of 1.339.397 lekë, with a total amount of yearly staff cost of only 10.000 lekë (plus 1.870 lekë payed for social insurance) and a profit at the end of the year of 778.429 lekë.

Even for the year 2014 there are no investments signs. 

On 2015, Abacus has incomes of 1.208.233 lekë, with a yearly cost of employees of 268.488 lekë (4.488 lekë for social insurances) and a profit of 76.127 lekë. It has no investment costs. 

On the 2016 balance, Abacus shows incomes of 1.416.098 lekë and again a staff cost on only 268.488 lekë, and a profit of 213.295 lekë. Even on 2016 there are no investments. It’s very strange that staff cost for 2014 and 2015 is reflected on the 2016 balance as “staff obbligations”: that means that if there was just one employee, with monthly salary of 22.000 lekë, this employee didn’t received even his salary. As a result of this, it is about a voice on the balance that is totally virtual. It is of main importance to mention that Abacus has never tooked loans and that its capital of 100.000 lekë was never delivered: this explains why the company has NEVER had financial resources to make the necessary investments to create a measurement system of the audience.

But if it has no investment costs, with wich electronic devices does it measure the audience? If it has no costs on internet trasmissions how does it gathers data from 1.000 families, which it pretends that monitors? If it has no staff, whith which technical staff does it manage the network of people meters, elaborates data and secure tecnological impiants maintenance?

Despite of this, the company still operates on market and sells “data on the audience” even to the international investitors that do operate in Albania and that pays for a service that has no one real bases. So, it looks like we have to do with an illegal commercial operation that harms even the TV market, deforming in an also illegal way the delicate competition market.






(Faksimile e bilancit nga shoqėria Abacus shpk pėr vitin 2016. Rezulton nė 12 muaj me vetėm 1.4 milionė lekė tė ardhura, me vetėm 264 mijė lekė paga baraz me njė rrogė mujore prej 22 mijė lekė qė ėshtė mė pak se rroga minimale parashikuar nga ligji 24 mijė lekė, pa asnjė makineri, pajisje kompjutera apo mjete transporti dhe me zero investime)

/Shqiptarja.com