• by September 2, 2005

FICKLED FINGER POINTERS OF FACTS -- An interesting debate has been taking place within the electronic pages of a spunky little e-mail newsletter called Television Business Report. Normally, we don't pay much heed to the multitude of electronic newsletters that flood our inbox--imagine that?--and frankly, we're not sure how we even got on the list for some of these. But we're grateful that we've begun getting this one. And we've even begun reading it. It's pretty dependable, and reliably up-to-date, even if most of the content is turgid inside broadcaster stuff. It keeps us informed, and we're a pretty informed group to begin with. Anyway, our point isn't to tout this newsletter. If you're not into the detailed comings and goings of broadcasters, you may not be interested in it at all. But we thought we'd at least fill you in on a revealing tit-for-tat that's been rat-a-tat-tatting in some recent issues.

The whole thing was sparked by TBR's coverage of a New York Times editorial advocating that the federal government stay out of the media ratings business. Which is probably a good thing as far as most people are concerned--outside of the Beltway or 1211 Avenue of the Americas. While it's difficult to know where TBR Editor and Publisher Jim Carnegie stands on that issue , he's made it evident that his readers are of mixed minds, which apparently follow party lines.

In response to the coverage, Dominic Mancuso, a station manager with WGN-TV in Chicago, appeared to side with a regulatory stance. That shouldn't be surprising to anyone who's followed the whole media ratings debate. Tribune Broadcasting was an early supporter of the so-called FAIR TV Ratings Act. "The current oversight system lacks any downside for Nielsen for non-compliance, much like the effectiveness of UN sanctions. Why on earth you and others continue to espouse that this foreign-owned monopoly should be able to operate unfettered and exert control over billions in U.S. media spending with no enforceable oversight is beyond comprehension," he said.

That provoked a response from Jon Mandel, the chairman of a big media agency (MediaCom U.S.), which happens to be owned by a foreign-owned company (WPP), which happens to be in TV ratings joint ventures with the foreign-owned monopoly Mancuso was complaining about. Not surprisingly, Mandel pointed the finger not at Nielsen, and certainly not at Madison Avenue, but at the broadcast community itself:

"I feel it is necessary to remind Mr. Mancuso that the reason Nielsen is a "monopoly" (which it really isn't, as there are other research companies) is that stations, in a bid to save money, stopped buying both Arbitron and Nielsen ratings," rejoined Mandel.

By "other research companies," we can only assume Mandel means WPP's Kantar Media Research, which last year merged its TV audience measurement assets with Nielsen's assets outside the U.S. to form an international TV ratings company operating in more than 30 countries across the Americas, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East. Or could it be that Mandel was referring to erinMedia, Frank Maggio's outfit--which is pursuing a Don Quixote-like dream of toppling Nielsen's U.S. ratings monopoly. Or maybe he meant the chaps at Taylor Nelson Sofres, who've begun testing a new TV ratings system in Honolulu, and who seem to be getting cozy with the folks at erinMedia?

Who knows? But it's clearly not Madison Avenue's fault, says Mandel, seeming to forget that the only ad agencies to support any substantive attempts to rival Nielsen in recent years--Arbitron's ScanAmerica, and, ironically, AGB's failed U.S. bid--were JWT and Y&R, two agencies that are now owned, equally ironically, by WPP Group. Oh well.

Anyway, none of this entered into the most recent rebuttal published by John Maher, director of planning for U.S. International Media, a fledgling media shop launched last year by independent media buying pioneer Dennis Holt. We don't have a Web link available yet to the latest TBR, but here's what Maher had to say about what Mandel had to say:

"I had to read Jon Mandel's response twice before I realized it wasn't a joke. What an incredibly namby-pamby, sniveling, mealy-mouthed reply. Besides foisting an answer that's woefully out of place, the oft-quoted U.S. Chairman of the world's 8th largest "media agency" seems to have been out sick or behind a door for the last 20+ years. To assert that TV stations are culpable for Nielsen's monopoly, because they stopped buying Arbitron's spot TV ratings service or that stations only have themselves to blame for crummy strip programming ratings is pathetic, condescending and finger pointing at its best. The entire industry's to blame for the situation we're in with Nielsen, because no one...not agencies, clients, stations, or networks...wants to step up and pay for better research. As long as the industry continues with a Three Stooges approach to resolving this, we'll have Nielsen and their lousy methodology as a monopoly."

Okay, so Maher doesn't mince words. Mandel doesn't disclose important vested interests. And spunky e-mail newsletters can sometimes get the story out there. Of course, we're going to spend the next 20 minutes deleting the ones in our inbox that do not.