• by April 22, 2005

GUESS WHO'S COUNTING THEMSELVES IN NOW? HINT: NEXT STOP? LOBBY PLEASE! - Until the past year, we thought a "lobbyist" was someone who liked to hang out in wide-open areas on the ground floors of big public places. Then we learned that they actually like to spend their time on the highest floors of some very private places, like the executive suite at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan.

It's not exactly a trade secret that News Corp. has been backing Nielsen-basher Don't Count Us Out (DCUO), and that it's bankrolled much of its advertising, PR, and lobbying efforts. News Corp. officials have come clean on that. The DCUO team even 'fessed up to it, when pressed by reporters during their incessant press briefings. Some of their hired guns have even owned up to the fact that they're on the News Corp. payroll. And while it's well known that one of those operatives has been influential Washington lobbying firm the Glover Park Group, it's more or less operated in the shadows - for all the obvious reasons - but mainly because the effectiveness of their lobbying work is dependent on working behind the political scenes. Now it seems Glover Park is doing some promotion of its own, going public and taking credit for organizing and executing the "grass roots" campaign that stirred up much of the noise in civil rights circles, among community leaders, and of course, on Capitol Hill.

"Fox parent-company News Corp. turned to the Glover Park Group to devise a campaign to fight back," against Nielsen, the lobbying firm proclaims in a fresh credentials posting on its Web site. "GPG enlisted community activists and organizations across the country in the Don't Count Us Out coalition. The coalition launched a grassroots campaign, including public protests and rallies; television, radio, and print ads were run both in affected markets and inside the Beltway; calls and e-mails were targeted at Nielsen executives, shutting down their corporate switchboard; and a legislative strategy was implemented targeting key Senators and Congressmen."

We can understand why the Glover Park team might want to slap itself on the back for shutting down Nielsen's switchboard, convincing lawmakers to make a political volleyball out of TV ratings meters that the ad industry already recognizes to be an improvement, and getting Nielsen to delay those meters. But we wonder if it isn't also a slap in the face of some of its allies on Capitol Hill. Besides, they've just taken all the fun out of listening to those press calls in which inquisitive trade reporters try to pry the truth about who's really behind the whole initiative. I guess we can stick to more fundamental questions like how much News Corp. is actually spending, and what was the return on that investment in terms of lost advertising revenues had Nielsen rolled out local people meters the way it originally planned.

Oh, and while we're at it, there's one other cost we'd like them to calculate for us: The economic toll from the time and resources Nielsen has had to divert from actually fixing its problems and improving audience measurement to combat the marketing and political shenanigans.