• by June 10, 2004

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL - Has anyone else noticed the irony of Univision choosing Los Angeles to file suit against Nielsen to block the rollout of local people meters? It's ironic, because Los Angeles happens to be the first ever local people meter market and it's been one since 1992 when Nielsen introduced the Nielsen Hispanic Station Index in the market. It's also ironic, because Univision was a major backer of that service and pushed for local people meters in Los Angeles, because they were proven to be a vastly superior method of measuring viewers than the meter/diary system used in other major markets. The rational, back then, at least, was that Los Angeles was a big, ethnically complex market and that it required the sophistication of a people meter to measure Latino audiences properly.

Then again, the local Hispanic people meter sample, may be the very reason why Univision selected Los Angeles and not New York to make its legal stand. With its own Hispanic overnight demographic ratings reports coming off the NHSI people meter service, Univision was probably in a good position to make direct comparisons with the new general market L.A. people meter service. But that's not what Univision said in the suit it filed against Nielsen with the Superior Court of the State of California in Los Angeles. "Univision will suffer incalculable loss of advertisers and revenue," alleges one of the charges in the suit, which seeks to enjoin Nielsen from rolling out the new meters. It goes on to predict that the ad losses will be "substantial" as "advertisers react to Univision's de-valued 'currency' and either take their business to other programmers, or demand and receive concessions or price breaks." For its part, Nielsen issued a statement asserting that the claims in Univision's suit "have no merit, in either law or fact, and we intend to fight them."

The Nielsen statement goes on to note that people meters are a "proven methodology" and have been used in the U.S. since 1987. It fails to note that they've been used locally in Los Angeles since 1992.

BUT CAN THEY CHEW GUM AND READ THE PAPER AT THE SAME TIME? - It's been a while since the Riff has heard a really good apocryphal reference to 20-year-old media planners, so we couldn't help chuckling to ourselves when Sears, Roebuck & Co. Director of Media Planning & Marketing, Matthew Spahn, posed a question to a panel of newspaper biggies during the Association of National Advertisers Print Advertising Forum in New York. "Are they reading newspapers," he asked, and if they're not, he continued, "are they qualified to plan newspaper buys?" Turns out the question was more serious than we thought. "I think it is an issue," acknowledged John Miller, managing partner and director of out-of-home and newspaper communications at WPP's Mediaedge:cia unit. "I wish that they were more regular readers of newspapers." Miller went on to note that some publishers are pitching in to help with the newspaper literacy of media planners. "The New York Times delivers to each media floor stacks of newspapers." But if we weren't mistaken, we think Miller's example elicited an almost imperceptible twitch from New York Times chief Janet Robinson who, sitting on the same panel, just got done explaining the Times' rationale for eschewing the free newspaper trend sweeping the industry.

CIN CITY - We've never really thought of Cincinnati as a Sin City. That honor normally goes to Vegas, or maybe the Big Apple. But apparently, sin sells just as well in the Big C. Only, it's spelled C-I-N. Cin, a new free, entertainment-focused tabloid aimed at the city's young adult set, the same set the rest of the newspaper industry is struggling to attract, apparently is a huge success, Mediaedge:cia outdoor and newspaper guru John Miller told the folks at the Association of National Advertisers Print Advertising Forum in New York this morning. "I think it is a marvelous way to build," said Miller, referring the tab's ability to attract the River City's young readers, though he isn't so sure about the quality of some of other new papers aimed at the same youthful crowd. "If you can finish the paper between Grand Central [Station], it's probably not enough to get involved with," he quipped, not referring to any paper in particular but sounding like he's been leafing through amNew York.