• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, January 20, 2004

In what must be one of the most intriguing explanations yet for the precipitous decline in viewing among young adults this season, the researchers at a major cable network sales organization have come up with evidence suggesting that one significant factor may be the war in Iraq, as well as other military conflicts spread around the world. The extraordinary deployment of U.S. troops, including many new enlistees and reserves in the 18- to 34-year-old bracket, has taken a sizeable bite--nearly 6 percent--out of Nielsen's ratings for that demographic, argues Rainbow National Cable Networks in a paper prepared by its research department.

"The [enlistment] of young men into military service--sent either to domestic group quarters (not measured by Nielsen) or to international settings (unable to view) removes a portion of that audience out of the viewing sample but not out of the universe," says Charlene Weisler, senior vice president-research at Rainbow, which operates a number of mid-size cable networks, including AMC, Fuse, and WE.

It was the impact on Fuse's ratings, a network that is aimed at young adults, that led the Rainbow team to conduct its own investigation into the matter, says Weisler, who points out that the impact of the sudden activation of young adults into the military may not be easily detectable by Nielsen or others.

"Just as Nielsen does not remove college students from the household universe when they go off to college and are unable to view, Nielsen is probably not removing those young men who are in the armed forces. Right now, that's approximately 1.8 million active duty, reserves, and National Guard," she says, adding that the current environment is making it difficult to get precise figures, but that Rainbow's assessment of the estimates it could gather suggest the deployment of young adults into active military roles may have impacted as much as "5.8 percent" of Nielsen's 18- to 34-year-old demo.

Nielsen executives said they considered the impact of the war, looked into it, and quickly discounted it as being a significant factor.

"It's one of the first things we looked at," says Jack Loftus, senior vice president-communications at Nielsen, adding that Nielsen was even ridiculed and derided by the major broadcast networks for suggesting that scenario. In fact, after conducting its own internal analysis, Loftus says Nielsen "didn't find a disproportionate number of young people going off to service in our sample."

Still, Rainbow's Weisler says that with active military forces at their highest level since the Vietnam War, the impact of military deployment "must be at least part of the reason" for ratings declines among the demo.

"Nielsen has plans to measure vacation homes and college campuses to learn how those people watch TV when they are away from home, but they have no plans to look at military bases," she notes.