• by Wayne Friedman , September 8, 2006

Nielsen Media Research will treat MyNetworkTV like other broadcast networks--almost.

MyNetworkTV will be included in Nielsen's National Television Index weekly People Meter ratings, which comes out every Thursday, with all national broadcast networks. But it won't get the overnight national ratings those networks received.

That's because MyNetworkTV has two weekday prime-time programs that air as strips, which are more akin to syndicated programming. MyNetwork airs two Monday to Friday English-language telenovelas--limited-series soap dramas that are modeled after Spanish-language telenovelas.

Nielsen's view of MyNetworkTV as a syndication service confirms, more or less, how advertisers and media agencies view its programming: Advertisers bought the network as syndication.

"Here's the irony," says Shari Anne Brill, vice president and director of programming of Carat USA. "Those Spanish-language networks which have telenovelas get overnight ratings." The difference is that those Spanish-language networks also air once-a-week programming, common with English-language and other networks.

Nielsen currently measures 11 networks through its National People Meter sample: ABC, Azteca America, CBS, CW, Fox, NBC, MyNetworkTV, Paxson, TeleFutura, Telemundo and Univision.

Though it won't get overnights, MyNetworkTV will continue to get metered market ratings, which represent about 70 percent of the country. Last night--the second of the network's existence--posted virtually identical numbers to its debut: Both "Desire" and "Fashion House" grabbed a 1.1 household rating/2 share.