Nielsen Unveils Hispanic Integration Plan, Will Report Language Preferences Of Individual Viewers

In a move that is symbolic of the mainstreaming of the U.S. Hispanic population, Nielsen late last week announced plans for integrating and reporting Hispanic households and individuals as part of a single, general market view of the U.S. television marketplace. The move is important because it marks an end to a bifurcated media marketplace in which Hispanic TV viewers were measured separately from the rest of the population, and the integration is expected to lead to more credible data and greater acceptance among U.S. media buyers and advertisers.

The question now is whether Nielsen can perform adequate sample recruitment and management across the board," said a long-time Nielsen client, adding that a major issue will be how Nielsen "weights" its TV ratings sample to adjust for the under-representation of certain types of viewers--including English- and Spanish-speaking Hispanic households.

As a result of the move, Nielsen will begin reporting various Hispanic and Spanish-language preference market breaks in its total sample, allowing all TV viewing sources to be analyzed on the basis of their Hispanic and Spanish-language audience composition, not just so-called Hispanic networks.

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Analysis of the data will still be somewhat subjective, Nielsen said, noting that interpretation of language preferences may require some assumptions.

"Language is a personal characteristic," Nielsen said in a communication to clients late last week. "Reporting language only at the household level can be confusing." As a result, Nielsen said that effective with the 2007-08 TV season, it would begin reporting data based on the language spoken by individuals within a household, and not simply the language preferred by the head of the household.

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