And when agencies were asked the same question about relationships with their marketer clients, 43 percent of respondents said there were more hassles — the second-highest level for that figure behind 45 percent in 1998.

Getting at the same issue in a different way, the survey also asked advertisers and agencies about the amount of tension in their relationships. Forty-one percent of the advertisers responding said there was more tension, the highest level since the survey began.

The response among the agencies was unchanged from last year, with 46 percent saying there was more tension.

Agencies were also asked to estimate the percentage of major clients for which they were able to do their best work. The response, 53.9 percent, was lower than the response last year, 58.4 percent. It was also the second lowest since the survey began, exceeding only the 52.9 percent offered by agency respondents in 1995.

When asked to assess the quality of the work they received from agencies on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 as the pinnacle, the average rating from advertisers was 7.1. That is below the survey average of 7.2 and not far from the low of 6.9, in 1990.