The Melting Blog

They're Here! People Meters Arrive In Los Angeles

And so after many months of wrangling, spitting, and stabbing (mostly under the watchful public eye), Nielsen's Local People Meter system goes into effect today in Los Angeles -- for better or for worse -- depending, of course, on who you believe. For most of you, your daily lives will continue as they have been, completely oblivious to the fact that the fate of your favorite TV program rests in the hands of a select random few, otherwise known as the Nielsen families, who are now beholden to a new technology.

So what does this all mean? Here's what the L.A. Times has to say:

For more than four decades, Nielsen has gleaned detailed demographic data about viewers' TV-watching habits from handwritten diaries collected several times a year during "sweeps" months.

Now, Nielsen plans to generate the local ratings daily with the people meters that have been installed in nearly 800 homes in the Los Angeles region. The meters electronically record what programs are being watched — and who is watching them.

Their introduction is sure to bring uncertainty and unease to the local broadcasting world as the old model for measuring audiences gives way to the new, station executives said.
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The Don't Count Us Out campaign, largely financed by News Corp., has spent $2 million to $5 million on TV and newspaper ads and phone banks to target homes in African American and Latino neighborhoods of New York and Los Angeles.

Both sides also have commissioned studies that support their positions.

The opposition campaign has attracted the support of some state and local officials as well as members of Congress. A Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee has tentatively scheduled a hearing July 15 to debate the accuracy of Nielsen's people meters.

Indeed, the high profile rabble-rousing and noise-making generated by Fox News Corp/Don't Count Us Out has reverberated widely into the halls of Washington lawmakers -- including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, as well as the Senate's Commerce and Communications Subcommittees.

When I first heard last week that Senate hearings would convene on the Local People Meters matter, I thought to myself, 'geez, how absurd.' I figured it's probably what happens when a high profile media campaign, funded by a big-time media conglomerate, hires heavy-weight D.C. lobbyists (e.g. Glover Park Group, Fabian/Lehane).

But there's a few other issues I hadn't considered until now.

Over the past couple days, I've traded emails with an informed congressional staffer who has helped to put some of this in perspective.

As I've been arguing all along, Local People Meters is hardly a legitimate civil rights issue despite the shrill public outcry and jockeying of Don't Count Us Out. This battle is really a private matter between a national TV ratings provider and its clients. To ensure some level of accountability over its services, there is the Media Ratings Council (MRC), a non-profit membership organization comprised of various media entities (many of whom I assume are also Nielsen clients) which accredits Nielsen's ratings services. Despite its formation at the urging of Congress back in 1964, the MRC is not a publicly-mandated organization but is an industry-based, self-regulating group.

This system of self-regulation -- which has existed for decades -- would be fine and dandy if media companies had other choices to turn to if they disagreed with, say, the way Nielsen samples its households. But they don't -- Nielsen is pretty much the only game in town, and they own a virtual monopoly over the media ratings business.

It's not that Nielsen doesn't have to appease its clients. They do, but they don't have to appease all of them (e.g. Fox and Univision) -- especially if they're going to be unreasonable. Since the MRC doesn't have any real regulatory authority over them, Nielsen can simply skip the accreditation process and fix things on the back-end once the system is place, which is what they're doing in this case. Hence, networks like Fox and Univision get stranded without alternatives since their clients buy advertising rates based on the ratings provided by Nielsen.

Here's the point I'm leading up to: as my staffer source on the Hill suggests, one of the interesting twists to look out for as this ratings debacle continues -- possibly as early as next week's Senate hearings -- are talks about potentially regulating Nielsen Media Research as a monopoly, a la Microsoft and AT&T (remember their breakup into baby bells, circa 1984?).

This, of course, is a wholly unintended consequence of Fox's high-profile political manuevering.

Or is it? Isn't Rupert Murdoch supposed to be allergic to government regulation? On the other hand, it gives News Corp an opportunity to make good on their threat to start their own ratings business to compete against Nielsen.

Hmm... stay tuned!

Read more on today's LPM rollout here. And here's Rupert Murdoch's, er, I mean Don't Count Us Out's response to today's LPM initiation here. The closing remarks of their release:

It is clearly time for Congress to intervene on the public's behalf. Nielsen must be subject to oversight in order to guarantee that its rating systems meet the standards of accuracy and fairness that American viewers deserve.

No question where the center of lobbying activity is gonna shift to now: Capitol Hill. More blogging when I can find the time.

Posted by thomas at July 8, 2004 12:59 PM | TrackBack