The NSW government is taking a fresh approach to its media planning and buying, creating a roster of agencies to handle each of its departments.

Originally, the set-up was the one master media contract (held by UM), which a number of agencies would work on (those being Zenith, Blue 449, OMD and MediaCom).

However, an industry source has told B&T that the master media buying contract will still exist, but only for the purposes of negotiating rates.

After that, the NSW government departments (health and transport, for example) will be awarded the budgets and will work with specific agencies, according to B&T’s source – and that’s where the money will be.

B&T understands that WPP AUNZ will manage the NSW government’s master account, while Havas Media and Atomic 212° have made the agency roster along with incumbents UM and OMD.

The state government is expected to formally assign agencies to its departments sometime next week.

The government issued an open media agency tender in May, saying it was “looking to establish a roster of full-service communication partners to secure a better way of working and delivering effective advertising messages to the people of NSW”.

“The objective is to deliver a successful media planning and buying service that is structured effectively and appropriately to meet the current and future advertising needs of the individual government departments and agencies, and that best represents the NSW government,” the tender description read.

Meanwhile, MediaCom snared the master contract for the Victorian government earlier this week, replacing Dentsu Mitchell and Zenith.

Furthermore, the federal government has just kicked of the tender process for its media agency services contract, which Dentsu Mitchell currently holds.