• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 11, 2004

As expected, African American and Latino rights groups Monday opened a new front against Nielsen's local people meter plans, kicking off a media campaign in Los Angeles, with plans to turn of the heat in Chicago in the next several weeks. The groups, whose efforts have already succeeded in getting Nielsen to delay the rollout of people meters in New York from April to June, claim the local people meters are biased against people of color, because they report lower ratings among African American and Hispanic viewers than Nielsen's current set-meter/diary systems in those local TV markets.

Nielsen, which is scheduled to begin measuring Los Angeles with people meters in July and Chicago in August, maintains the people meters are more accurate at measuring TV ratings for all viewers, regardless of their ethnicity, and that its samples will accurately represent people of color.

But the advocacy groups remain unconvinced and with the aid of influential policy makers, plan to do whatever they can to dislodge Nielsen's local people meter efforts until the ratings company can resolve their concerns.

"This is a civil rights matter. This is no longer just about television," Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition told Media Daily News on Monday. "We are not represented. [Nielsen] is a monopoly."

Nogales, who was a key organizer behind Don't Count Us Out, the advocacy group that successfully put enough head on Nielsen to delay the New York people meter rollout, said the efforts in Los Angeles and Chicago would rely primarily on public relations. He said the groups currently lack the budgets to fund any significant advertising efforts in those markets, though he said they were hopeful of getting support.

He also denied that Fox, or its parent News Corp., were backing the effort. He claimed to have no business ties with the media concern, and even noted that his coalition currently has a petition to "deny the acquisition of DirecTV by News Corp.," because the management of those units lack any representation of Hispanics.

Nogales also denied Nielsen charges that the group and its research firm Rincon & Associates refused to meet with Nielsen executives to resolve conflicts over Hispanic measurement issues, and said he was outraged by Nielsen's announcement that it had retained the University of Southern California's Thomas Rivera Policy Institute to investigate the matter.

"I find it absolutely incredulous that Nielsen should find their own Mexican to come against us," said Nogales, adding that he hoped to meet with Nielsen in front of a panel of regulators to resolve outstanding issues in an impartial setting.

On Monday, Nielsen announced it had retained the USC policy group to help with the situation and released a presentation to the media, clients and policy makers explaining Nielsen's history and procedures for recruiting and measuring minority viewers.