• by Paul Gough , February 25, 2003

Nielsen Media Research announced Monday major commitments to its People Meters and said the service would be in place in the nation’s top 10 markets by 2006.

The electronic People Meter service, which ditches diaries in favor of a marriage of data from the set-top and a special keypad, will begin next year in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. The rest of the markets will be rolled out in 2005 with Atlanta being last in 2006. It’s already been in operation in Boston, the country’s sixth-largest market. The top 10 markets include 32 million TV households.

Financial commitments have been made by NBC, ABC, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and rep firm Adlink. Terms of the deals weren’t disclosed.

Nielsen spokesman Jack Loftus said the People Meter service, when activated, will have a dramatic effect on the TV business.

“Instead of waiting for the sweeps, four times a year, to see demographics these stations and the advertisers can look at demographic ratings the next day. That’s a huge advantage … They’ll have access to that information every day,” Loftus said.

That will dramatically increase the level of buying, selling, scheduling and programming decisions at the local level, which in many cases will have to wait for the sweeps months to know demographic ratings.

“It’s going to have a major impact on how television time is bought and sold and a much greater impact on programming decisions … Nobody has to wait for the diary results to come in for the sweeps. That’s a huge advantage to the marketer,” he said.

With the People Meter, Nielsen knows what’s on the TV screen because it’s attached to the tuner. But the human element, which has been controlled by a diary, will now be accessed via a keyboard.

“The markets will have overnight demographic ratings data that never had that information before,” Loftus said.

Patricia Ligouri, VP of research for ABC’s owned and operated TV stations, said it will provide a cleaner type of measurement that doesn’t rely on people’s recall.

“It allows Nielsen to better measure the viewing environment, in whatever way it changes, whether it’s PRV or multicast,” she said.

Ligouri said she didn’t think it would do away with the sweeps periods because there are still going to be a lot of markets that won’t have the overnight access to demographic information.