• by April 28, 2004

APPARENTLY, THEY DON'T WANT NIELSEN TO COUNT THEM IN, EITHER -- After complaining that Nielsen's local New York people meter system under-represented viewers of color - that's African Americans and Hispanic Americans, not necessarily people who use a color TV - Don't Count Us Out is taking a new tack. Claiming that Nielsen's plans to add "more people to the system will not fix the problem," Paul Williams, president of 100 Black Men of New York went on to assert, "It's a further indication that Nielsen has no clue how to accurately measure African-American television viewership." The statement didn't offer any indications of what steps Nielsen should actually take, or why adding people to the sample would not make the ratings of African Americans of Hispanic Americans more representative other than to say the people meter system "unfairly undercounts people of color." That seems to be a shift in the DCUO position from sample representation issue to the people meter's methodology. And that could be the group's Achilles heel, given the fact that people meters have already been proven through numerous independent studies, across a wide cross-section of cultures and people of a variety of colors across the entire planet to be a vastly superior method than the set-meter/diary system they would be replacing. If that's true, then it seems DCUO is not really concerned about the inaccuracy of people meters, but their accuracy, and the fact that they tend to report significantly lower levels of viewing among some minorities, even though that may be what's really going on.

None of this stopped Williams from invoking a civil rights theme to the entire issue. "I was raised to think that issues of justice and fairness always mattered in this country," he said. Obviously, Williams completely misunderstands how Nielsen operates. But the significant injustices and unfairnesses perpetrated by Nielsen have nothing to do with the accurate counting of people of color. They have to do with how the monopolistic researcher leverages its market position. How it operates with apparent disregard for what its customers often want. How it fixes prices in a market where it is the sole supplier. How it deftly blocks potential competition, as it seems to be doing through an ingenious joint venture dodge with Arbitron over the development of a portable people meter system that Nielsen has no intention of ever letting see the light of day.

The reality is that Nielsen often operates unfairly and with injustice, just not when it comes to measuring television audiences. The other reality is that DCUO is going to continue to lavish any and all political pressure on Nielsen in an effort to slow or curtail the rollout of local market people meters for two big reasons: It's backers - chiefly News Corp. - have deep pockets and lots of incentive; and it is proving to be highly effective. The Riff even hears that DCUO is preparing big media blitzes in other imminent people meter markets, Los Angeles and Chicago, with ads created by a major ad shop, all in an effort to create the same kind of disruption and dissention that has proven so effective in New York. What we don't understand, is whether the civil rights leaders that have become DCUO's public faces actually understand the nuances of media audience measurement, or whether they have been duped by the same kind of anti-Nielsen spin that has gotten political leaders on the local people meter bandwagon. If they do understand the issues and they're pursuing this agenda anyway, then they are actually the ones who are being unfair and unjust, and they are being that way to the very same groups they claim to represent, because without an accurate representation of the viewing habits of African Americans and Hispanic Americans, television programmers cannot properly develop the types of programming that will cater to their interests, and Madison Avenue would be in no position to support it.

And while we doubt there's any direct connection between Williams' Nielsen people meter bashing and his connections to News Corp., we can't help but wonder. After all, it was News Corp.'s very own New York Post, which reported Nov. 5, 2003 that News Corp. had donated $100,000 to 100 Black Men of New York City.

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