• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, April 5, 2005

A year after the start of a political debate surrounding its roll out of people meters in local TV markets, Nielsen Media Research Monday said it was taking unusual steps to improve those local market TV ratings samples, including a plan to personally coach and provide "performance-based incentives" to people living in minority and larger households.

The plan, which was announced to customers in a client notice mailed on Monday, appears to contradict Nielsen's claims that the samples in its local people meter markets were performing adequately and deserved to be accredited by the Media Rating Council.

It is also unclear whether the new steps being implemented by Nielsen were approved by the MRC, and how they might impact Nielsen's accreditation process.

Meanwhile, the initiative appears to acknowledge and may be designed to appease elements of the recent Nielsen Task Force recommendations to make extra efforts to boost sample cooperation among minority households.

On Monday, Nielsen said it would implement its new personal coaching and performance-based incentives program in six local markets--New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, DC--although it inexplicably announced no plans to utilize them in its first local people meter market in Boston, or in any of the other markets it plans to introduce people meters in.

Nielsen said the new procedures would be implemented in African American and Hispanic households, as well as in households with five-plus members, or those where the head of the household is under the age of 35.

Nielsen outlined a multi-step process for coaching the difficult households, including repeated efforts to communicate and re-educate household members on the correct procedures for using people meters. Nielsen said such training would include a "written manual" as well as "classroom training for Nielsen's field representatives."

Regarding the new incentives policy, Nielsen said: "Correct behavior is rewarded and incorrect behavior is not."

Nielsen did not say whether it had tested if such incentives might also impact viewing behavior, but it did note that all members of the household would "at least indirectly benefit."

Nielsen said it would also begin sending "reminder mailings," including tips on how Nielsen households can "increase the likelihood that their data are included in the reporting sample."