Nielsen Puts Brakes On L.A., Chicago People Meters, Races Ahead In New York

Nielsen Monday informed clients it would delay the introduction of people meters for local TV measurement in the nation's second and third largest markets (Los Angeles and Chicago) but was pushing ahead with plans to convert the nation's largest advertising marketplace on April 8, 2004, despite some difficulties developing representative panels in the other TV markets. At least one major player, News Corp., voiced strong concerns to Nielsen's decision to move forward in New York, claiming the meters "undercount viewing by as much as 25 percent, particularly among young and minority viewers."

Broadcasters, especially those that currently enjoy dominant market shares, have generally been opposed to the conversion to people meters for local TV audience measurement. They've made their case based on concerns over the people meters' methodology, even though Madison Avenue has routinely credited people meters as representing a significant advance over the convoluted meter and diary system used by Nielsen in the major TV markets. But Fox has raised an interesting new argument in its opposition of people meters, claiming that the system unduly biases minorities and particularly African American viewers. Ironically, Nielsen is poised to release new research showing how the rollout of local people meters will actually improve representation of minorities, including African American, in its national TV ratings sample.

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"Until Nielsen can prove the accuracy of its numbers, particularly in counting young and African-American viewers, we risk implementing a seriously flawed system," Lachlan Murdoch, deputy COO of News Corp. and chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group, said late Monday in a statement following Nielsen's announcement.

Citing issues that led to the delay of Nielsen's rollout of people meters in the other major markets, Murdoch noted, "If the meter isn't good enough for Los Angeles and Chicago yet, it certainly isn't good enough for the nation's largest market."

Nielsen executives said the issues that led them to delay Los Angeles and Chicago were unique to those markets, and that they were confident the New York people meter sample is integral and would be ready for deployment on April 8, 2004, it's originally scheduled date.

In its client communiqué, Nielsen acknowledged it was having difficulty building a representative sample in Los Angeles due to the ethnic complexity of the market. "Los Angeles is one of the most diverse markets in the country, and has been the most challenging market in terms of achieving a representative sample," said Nielsen.

Nielsen executives said Los Angeles also has proven one of the most political so far in terms of opposition from its clients.

Nielsen attributed the delay in Chicago to problems it has had releasing data that can be used by clients to evaluate how representative its sample is in that market.

Nielsen said the delays in Los Angeles and Chicago would slow the process down in those markets by about two months, but that it essentially remained on schedule for deploying local people meters and for integrating them into its national TV ratings sample. In fact, data scheduled to be released later this week will show that Nielsen has already added 500 new households to its national sample, bringing it up to 5,500 homes. Those new households came from a combination of its new local people meter service in Boston, as well as additional "national expansion" households it has been recruiting.

Between its local people meter markets and the additional national sample households it is recruiting, Nielsen plans to bring its national sample up to an effective sample of 10,000 households in 2006, when Atlanta, the final local people meter market in its rollout plan, goes live.

While the impact that sample expansion would have on national ratings overall and for certain demographic groups - Hispanics, for example - has been well known, Nielsen is poised to release new data showing the impact it will have on ratings for African American viewers.

Currently, there are only 670 African American households in Nielsen's 5,500 household national TV ratings sample. When its national expansion is completed, Nielsen projects it will have 1,200 African American, households, which would represent 12 percent of that base. More importantly, it would be enough households to generate stable data on African American audience breaks for networks and programs with even relatively small ratings. That should be a boon to advertisers, agencies and TV outlets targeting African American viewers.

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