• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, April 11, 2006

Six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the nation's 43rd largest media market, Nielsen Media Research Monday announced it is restoring New Orleans as a metered TV ratings market. But New Orleans, which has produced no "currency data" since hit by the natural disaster during the last week of August 2005, has emerged as a smaller, and demographically changed marketplace, according to results of a 41-page report released by Nielsen. The result could be a profound shift in the way advertisers and agencies plan media buys for the region.

While the report does not explicitly state New Orleans' new marketing ranking, Nielsen estimates that the DMA, or designated market area, has stabilized at about 83.8 percent of its pre-Katrina population. Key areas within the market, however, were more profoundly impacted, leading to a reshaping of the demographic composition of the market.

The population of the New Orleans Metro Area has decreased 25 percent, while the Orleans parish (the city of New Orleans) is 62.4 percent lower. Another key parish, St. Bernard, is 83.3 percent lower, while Plaquemines parish is 48.3 percent lower.

"While much is still unknown and much is still changing," Nielsen said the preliminary estimates, which are based on data from Claritas, Nielsen's official demographic estimates supplier, and other sources, "provide a sketch of the initial displacement and the movement back to the impacted areas."

Because media plans tend to lag behind market developments, it is unclear how much ad spending has shifted out of the marketplace, but the data and the resumption of TV ratings are likely to ferment decisions that advertisers and planners had been adjusting based on intuitive judgment.

"The mass evacuation profoundly affected the demographic makeup of New Orleans and surrounding areas," notes the Nielsen report. While the Claritas estimates do not include characteristics for persons by race, ethnicity, age, or sex, it says "much can be inferred" by analyzing data from other sources, specifically citing:

* A Brown University study determined that 75.0 percent of the residents in the damaged areas in New Orleans were black compared to 46.2 percent in undamaged areas.
* Of the Federal Current Population Survey respondents who evacuated due to Katrina, 32.8 percent of African American evacuees had returned to their homes by February 2006, while 68.8 percent of White evacuees had returned.
* The City of New Orleans Emergency Operations survey indicates that the city is 53.3 percent male and 46.7 percent female. Prior to Katrina, the population was 46.9 percent male and 53.1 percent female.
* The City of New Orleans Emergency Operations survey indicates that the percentage of the population under age 18 is much lower (14.8 percent) than before Katrina (27.6 percent).