• by May 13, 2005

IN NIELSEN WE TRUST, ALL OTHERS MAY BASH -- We are too young to remember "old time" radio, but we've always been big fans of Jean Shepard, and have secretly craved the kind of "Little Orphan Annie" secret decoder rings he wrote about in his wonderfully nostalgic book, "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash." So when the Television Bureau of Advertising Bureau offered us one in an email today, we naturally read on.

If you don't remember the book, or Shepard's radio talk show, you may recall the holiday TV movie, "A Christmas Story." It's based on Shepard's book, he narrates it, and it includes a scene in which a boy finally saves up enough labels of chocolate milk powder Ovaltine to send away for one of the decoder rings, which supposedly were the same used by Little Orphan Annie to decode messages in her radio show. When the ring finally arrives in the mail, the boy rushes up to the bathroom, bars the door and begins decoding Little Orphan Annie's secret message: "O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E."

Turns out the TVB's offer was no better than "Little Orphan Annie's." Heck, we didn't even get a ring. Just a come-on, and a February ratings sweeps pitch that used the decoder rings as a metaphor to make light of some sweeps ratings spin spun out by Turner Broadcasting's research chief Jack Wakshlag.

"After the February 2005 sweep, Turner released a statement claiming that cable beat the seven broadcast networks, with a 49.4 share in primetime vs. broadcast's 48.6," read the TVB's missive, which went on to recall the Ovaltine decoder ring. "In its memory, TVB offers the Turner Secret Decoder. We hope that you will use it when Turner presents its findings after the May sweeps." Ostensibly, using the ring, the TVB's claims to have decoded the following facts about Turner's sweeps ratings methodology:

* Turner uses "viewing source" ratings, as does TVB, but they do not analyze broadcast ratings in the same way TVB does.

* Turner's broadcast total does not include independents and Spanish-language networks and affiliates; therefore, its broadcast share is not an "all broadcast" number.

* The total ad-supported cable number Turner cites in its analysis includes over 300 cable networks, regional cable networks and local cable channels; this number is truly an "all ad-supported cable" number, in contrast to its representation of broadcast.

* Turner also applies weights to Fox, UPN and WB, based on the number of hours these nets broadcast network programming in primetime, reducing the ratings of these broadcast networks.

According to the TVB's analysis of Nielsen's February ratings sweeps, total broadcast prime-time ratings actually topped total ad-supported cable with a share of 54.5 to 45.4. (37.4 / 68.5 = 54.5 for broadcast; 31.1 / 68.5 = 45.4 for ad-supported cable).

"Even if we limit broadcast to the seven broadcast nets, based on our analysis broadcast still topped ad-supported cable in the February sweep with a share of 51.9 to 48.1," claimed the TVB.

That's great, but we wonder if there wasn't another reason why the TVB chose to use "A Christmas Story" as a metaphor for Turner's ratings distortion. Could it be that Turner televises the movie every holiday season?

By the way, where's our ring?

AUTO REPLY - Did anyone else get a funny out-of-office bounce-back when they tried emailing someone at Starcom on Thursday? We did. It was marked "**Confidential** **High Priority**"

The messages read, "Starcom will be out of the office whole of today, May 12. We will be back in the office tomorrow. Apologies for the inconvenience."

What the message should have read was, "Starcom will be out of the office whole of today, May 12. Celebrating with wild abandon, billing General Motors for T&E, per-person hours devoted to partying and hangovers.

"Out of office all day on May 13 as well, raiding the best people at Interpublic Group to staff the New York City buying office of our new Motor City account."