• by David Kaplan , September 30, 2004

As Nielsen continues its rollout of the controversial local people meters, Interpublic Group's Initiative is attempting to take advantage of the availability of overnight local ratings data through the creation of a tool it's calling "The Overnight Alert System."

As Nielsen issues daily audience ratings, both household and LPM, Initiative's alert system examines all on-air schedules against the new information to determine if the media schedule has delivered the desired number of viewers in a particular demographic.

"If a schedule is projected to underachieve, then spot buyers are automatically notified with an alert," Anaka Kobzev, an Initiative representative said. "The alert contains instant access to 'e-mail ready' compensation requests for immediate distribution to stations that state exactly what needs to be made good."

Several groups have spoken out against LPMs lately, most notably the Don't Count Us Out coalition - funded largely by News Corp. and minority advocacy groups - signifying an apparent decline in minority audiences for certain programs when LPM is used versus the diary method.

Still, it looks as though the negativity surrounding LPMs may be waning. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, publicly came out in favor of LPMs last month. And Nielsen recently entered into an alliance with a Latino research institute to help improve measurement of Hispanic TV audiences. Nationally recognized Latino social scientists plan to evaluate and make recommendations regarding all aspects of the rating company's audience measurement. It appears that is safe for agencies, like Initiative, to begin embracing the LPM system. In a statement about its new alert system, Initiative acknowledged that historically, smaller ratings occur when a system is automated as opposed to viewers to recalling what they watched, but in the end, it all worked out.

"A similar ratings decline occurred when the national people meters were introduced in 1987," Kobzev said. "In time, all parties adjusted. Despite the audience fluctuations that may occur in the LPM rollout, networks and advertisers will be as eager as ever to reach audiences of all different ethnic backgrounds and will continue to support programming that accomplishes this most effectively and efficiently."

Initiative considers the LPM a step in the right direction, in terms of increasing the accuracy of ratings. "While the LPM is not perfect, it's an improvement over written diaries and, for now, is the best technology available," Kobzev added. "As a result, we support the move to LPM and use the data in all of the markets in which it has been rolled out."

Making headway in Boston last year, this past summer LPMs were launched in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Nielsen launched LPMs in San Francisco last month and plans to introduce LPMs in the remaining top 10 markets of Washington, Dallas, Detroit, and Philadelphia next year, with Atlanta coming in 2006, according to a Nielsen Media Research spokesman.