The Melting Blog

Obama-palooza

Barack Obama swooned the country this past week, if the blogosphere is any indication. A few observations by Anna Deveare Smith in today's New York Times:

Will Mr. Obama change black political oratory? His speech did not, for example, elicit the traditional call and response we associate with powerful black speech. The speech instead evoked speechlessness. "That guy's amazing," said the blond model sitting next to me in the hall. Mr. Obama comes out of a mixed tradition, and I'm not talking about his racial mix. He is mixing traditions of communication. As he himself explained to me: "I tap into the tradition that a lot of African-Americans tap into and that's the church. It's the church blended with a smattering of Hawaii and Indonesia and maybe Kansas, and I've learned a lot of the most important things in life from literature. I've been a professor of law. I'm accustomed to making an argument. When I am effective, it's coming from my gut."

If Mr. Clinton goes from Stoppard to Shaw to Shakespeare, does Mr. Obama go from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Langston Hughes, to preachers, to slavery? No, wait. It's not that simple. Mr. Clinton takes a road that stops off at the black church. Mr. Obama stops off in a literary tradition that we do not immediately associate with black oratory. Is this what Dr. King's dream was all about? Was it about more than schools and laws? Was it about irresistible fusions, irresistible mixed oratories? Was it about all of us talking to one another and as one another?

Also check out this take on Barack Obama from Leon Wynter's new blog, the American Race. Wynter, the former "Business and Race" columnist for the Wall Street Journal, wrote his own influential bestseller on "transracialism" --American Skin -- back in 2002. That treatise is pretty much the de facto business plan of our firm, New American Dimensions (we'll be one year old this coming Sunday!)

To mark the one year anniversary of our enterprise, I will be publishing an interview I did this past week with Mr. Wynter here -- so check back soon!

Move Over Barbie and Bratz... For the Homiez!

The toy business is a funny one. Although sales of Barbie have declined significantly, Mattel has found success in its more ethnically diverse American Girl line, while the street-wise Bratz continue to conquer the imagination of tween girls in the U.S. Apparently, America's kids (and children at heart) no longer care for dolls and figures who look nothing like them; they wanna keep it real.

Thus, this coming holiday season prepare for Homiez and Mijos to invade your nearest Toys R Us. These dolls are the brainchild of artist/entrepreneur/toymaker David Gonzales, who has based his figures on real life characters he grew up with in Oakland, CA. From today's Knight Ridder:

"I hope people recognize us as an artist-driven, grass-roots business, not a big company trying to tap into the Latino market," Gonzales explains. "It wasn't meant to be a big business. I just followed where it led me."

No turning back now homie, your products are now in WalMart:

Also on the shelves are the "Mijos," Gonzales' kinder, gentler line for younger kids. The first series of 6-inch action figures is now in stores such as Wal-Mart, with more to come from the manufacturer Toy Play. The characters will also show up on sneakers, skateboards and in a series of paperback books coming in the fall from Scholastic.

The word Mijos is short for the Spanish mis hijos, "my children." The characters include a girl and two boys based on Gonzales' own children, now ages 16 to 21, and he has created stories for them all about life in the East Bay's "Oaktown," modeled on Oakland.

Needless to say, this success would not be possible if not for the rapid rise of the Hispanic market. Moreover, Gonzales is expanding his repertoire to include an entire line of multi-ethnic characters:

But the Mijos also represent the bigger picture of mass marketing in America.

"The Hispanic community is the fastest-growing demographic in the United States," notes Jonathan Breiter, vice president of Toy Play's parent company, the New York-based Betesh group. Yet the Mijos — whom Gonzales has created to include Latino, Anglo, Indian and Korean characters — should appeal to a wide range of youngsters, Breiter believes.

"Kids love urban, because urban is cool," he says.

Apparently urban is hot as well as cool: Breiter expects the expanded line of the Mijos action figures, along with their line of little clothes, to generate several million dollars in sales by the end of next year.

Success stories like these warm my heart. Read it all.

Spotted originally at Latino Pundit and Republica Trading. Big ups.

Rockin' the Vote? Latino and Asian Voters in 2004

Wow, check this out: no less than the venerable Urban Institute has released a study today examining the likely impact Asian and Latino voters will have on the upcoming elections. Here are some highlights:

* Latino and Asian vote is rising. While the number of votes cast by whites in the presidential election rose by only 4.3 percent between 1996 and 2000,1 the number of Asian votes rose by 22 percent. Hispanic votes increased by 19 percent.

The Asian and Latino populations are heavily dominated by immigrants: 64 percent of Asians are foreign-born as are 40 percent of Latinos. In contrast, only 3 percent of whites are immigrants.

* Latino and Asian vote is not proportional to population. Latinos represented 12.6 percent of the total U.S. population in 2000, but only 5.3 percent of the votes cast. Asians were 4.2 percent of the population versus 1.9 percent of votes. In contrast, whites accounted for 70 percent of the population, but over 81 percent of all votes.

In 2004, the Latino share of votes could increase to 6.1 percent solely because of population growth (i.e., with no changes in registration or turnout). For Asians, population growth could increase their share to 2.4 percent.

* Demographic factors dilute Latino and Asian vote. About 62 percent of Latinos could not register to vote in 2000 because they were either too young or not U.S. citizens; 59 percent of Asians could not register. In contrast, only 35 percent of blacks and 25 percent of whites could not register to vote for demographic reasons.

* Naturalization remains a key factor. Legal Latino immigrants are much less likely to become U.S. citizens than other immigrants; only 38 percent had done so by 2000 versus almost 60 percent of other immigrants. If Latinos had naturalized at the same rate as other immigrants, approximately 700,000 additional Latino votes would have been cast in 2000. Another one million Latino votes could be added in 2004, if the naturalization rate were on par with other immigrants.

* Voter registration lags at every age. Latino and Asian citizens are considerably less likely to register to vote than whites and blacks, at every age. If Latinos had registered at the same rate as white citizens, the result would have been approximately one million more Latino votes cast in 2000. Asians would have 500,000 additional voters if they had registered at the same rate as white citizens.

* Lower turnout also translates into loss of potential votes. Latino citizens who register are less likely to vote than whites. If Latinos had turned out to vote at the same rate as white citizens, the result would have been almost 700,000 more Latino votes cast in 2000. Asian turnout levels are higher, but turnout as high as whites would still have added about 200,000 new Asian voters.

Check out the whole thing. Download the entire report here.

Si Se Puerta!

From today's Houston Chronicle:

During a speech to the Hispanic caucus on Monday, the Rev. Al Sharpton delivered a bilingual appeal to delegates to build a coalition with blacks. Politicians, he declared, think all they need to do is learn Spanish to get the Hispanic vote, he said.

"Well I know one thing, 'no' means 'no' in English and in Spanish," Sharpton said. "The only Spanish Republicans speak is 'no,' and that's why we are going to say 'no' in November."

Sharpton then told delegates he'd learned some Spanish, too. In a call and response about the issues they can achieve, Sharpton repeatedly barked: "Sí se puerta. Yes we can."

But Sharpton apparently needs more lessons. What he said means "Yes, we door." What he should have said was "si se puede."

Props to Latino Pundit

Rewriting U.S. Citizenship

I'm thoroughly swamped this week. On top of that, I'm also trying to keep up with the goin' ons in Boston like the rest of Blue America. So chew on this in the meantime:

WASHINGTON, July 26 - In an effort to improve the quality and fairness of the citizenship test taken every year by hundreds of thousands of immigrants, the government is overhauling the naturalization exam.

Like the current exam, the replacement will test applicants in two areas: proficiency in English and knowledge of United States history and government. A major intent is to make sure the exams are administered uniformly. The new test will also try to ensure that prospective citizens understand basic concepts of American democracy and are not merely reciting facts by rote.

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Currently, the difficulty of the history and government test depends on which 10 questions the proctor chooses from an exam book. To pass, an applicant has to get six right. Sample questions on the current exam include: What are the colors of our flag? Who said, "Give me liberty or give me death"? and Who is the chief justice of the Supreme Court?

A review of the citizenship exam began in September 2001. The immigration agency is working on a study guide for the history and government part. When that is done, there will be a 60-day period for public comment. Then the agency will revise the exam and test its effectiveness. It plans to begin using the new exam in 2006.

Read the whole thing.

"A Dumb Stoner Comedy for a New American Century"

Times chief film critic, A.O. Scott, on upcoming stoner flick "Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle":

...one of the few recent comedies that persuasively, and intelligently, engage the social realities of contemporary multicultural America.

Huh? Now I'm intrigued.

At first glance they could be poster children for early 21st-century American diversity (either that or marijuana legalization), except that the very word would totally kill their buzz. The impressive thing about "Harold and Kumar" is that it takes such blithe account of the fact of multiculturalism while having very little use for the concept. Or really, given its proud adherence to the standards of its genre, for any concept at all. It's not quite that ethnic differences don't exist, or that they're no big deal — being insulted or mocked or made to feel invisible has a way of turning into a big deal. It's more that belonging to a certain group has no inherent meaning and brings with it no particular obligations of behavior.

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But the baggage of victimhood isn't really part of Harold and Kumar's nightlong road trip. Nor is the identity crisis that is a virtual requirement of immigrant literature. The kinds of books that Harold and Kumar would have been assigned to read in college, whether about Jewish-, Asian-, Italian- or Latino-Americans, feature a conflict between the traditions of the old country and the alluring freedoms of the new world, between customs that offer both confinement and continuity and choices that promise both liberation and loss. It's a durable tradition, stretching back to David Cahan's tales of Lower East Side striving in the early 19th century, through the anxious early novels of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth into the work of writers like Gish Jen and Sandra Cisneros, and it has become a staple of the post-Dead White Males literary curriculum. The dominant flavor in the melting pot is bittersweet, as the comedy of cultural collision is anchored in the pathos of yearning, betrayal and loss. In the movies, this predicament plays out in popular English domestic comedies like "Bend It Like Beckham" and "East Is East" and in warm, inspirational American dramas like "Real Women Have Curves" and "What's Cooking?"

In most cases, those conundrums of assimilation are happily resolved, as the young protagonists of those films — and of the novels that tread over similar ground — find a way to balance the demands of home and the lure of the world, to move on without forgetting where they came from. What is striking about "Harold and Kumar" is not that these issues are resolved differently but that they never really come up. The drama of hyphenation does not interest Harold and Kumar at all. They have more important things to worry about, like escaping from group sex with a hideous, boil-covered tow-truck driver, fending off a rabid raccoon and, above all, finding that elusive fast-food restaurant where all desires can be satisfied. In the future, a term paper will no doubt be written about the racial connotations of the name White Castle, about the way in which its elusiveness represents the mirage of assimilationist aspirations and its ultimate attainment suggests the terrible double-bind of American pluralism — all of which is fine. But really, the thing is — dude, they're hungry.

I can't say I'm a big fan of the stoner flick genre. So when I first heard about this movie at Mahoot Media's Blog (Mahoot is also executing an ethnic marketing campaign for New Line on behalf of the movie), I thought to myself, "Harold and Kumar Go Straight To Video" more likely.

But I have to admit I'm rather tired of the immigrant generational sagas which Scott refers to. At least in film, those kind of stories are among the few opportunities that people of varied ethnic backgrounds are represented or given any prominent screentime. It's not that those narratives no longer have any place or legitimacy for me, it's just that they feel played out and stale.

In contrast, reading A.O. Scott's review about the antics of Harold and Kumar's second generation protagonists actually sounds refreshing. Chalk it up to my increasingly boorish tastes, but at least Harold and Kumar show new dimensions among people of color that haven't yet been represented. This is no Joy Luck Club redux, and by my estimation that's a good thing.

Now I haven't seen the movie yet, so I can't vouch for it, but the likelihood of my watching it just increased. Plus, check out the critics meter so far at Rotten Tomatoes -- shocking.

Random Scenes of Hysteria From Across the Sunbelt

* Cali heads! Remember Prop 187? The 1994 anti-illegal immigrant initiative that alienated an entire generation of Latinos in the Golden State? Well, Arizona now has it's own version of it, and it's going to be on their state ballot this November. Maybe it has something to do with all those fearful ex-Californians who since retreated to the Grand Canyon State during the latter nineties? What Arizonians also need to realize is that Prop 187 galvanized a new generation of Latino voters, activists, and politicians too...

* Not that Latinos are immune to the nativist spell. While both George Bush and John Kerry ratchet up the spending to woo the prized Latino Vote, using Spanish-language advertising in key battleground states like New Mexico, Arizona, and Florida, here's something to keep in mind (from yesterday's NYTimes):

...many Hispanic families have been in New Mexico for generations and some take a dim view of immigrants.

"You know what the problem is with this state?" said Erlindo Castillo, a librarian in Santa Fe, in an interview afterward. "Too many Mexicans.''

"They come here for the free services and to take our jobs, and then they send all the money back across the border," said Ms. Castillo, an American flag in one hand, a Kerry poster in the other.

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"For me, this is about us having kids over there in Iraq, dying for no good reason," Mr. Sanchez said. "Republicans are crazy if they think they're going to get the Hispanic vote in New Mexico this year. They come here and say a couple of words of Spanish? What is that to me, you know what I mean?"

* The Hmong Challenge. Remember the looming Hmong influx I first mentioned back in April? The first of these refugees are now arriving into the states -- into Minnesota, California, etc. -- and the existing community here is set to grow by 50% over just the next few months. Here's an NPR story today (with streaming audio) that outlines their settlement issues and the challenges they face. Somewhere out there, Patrick Buchanan is letting out a blood-curdling scream.

* Yello Grrls Unite! I first caught this at Oliver Wang's indispensable Pop Life blog: The organization, Asian Women United, has released survey results on the general attitudes and perceptions folk have of Asian females in media. They've posted a selection of quotes gathered from the survey, such as:

“I can personally identify with (being the target of) the bullshit stereotype of ‘exotic Asian whore beauty’ that stems from white people seeing Miss Saigon and believing that every Asian woman is here because she was saved from a life of prostitution by a white man. My girlfriends and I were in Downtown Minneapolis on Washington Ave. We are all Korean adopted women, fairly attractive, and conservatively dressed for the evening. Anyways, while my friend and I waited for my other friend to come out of the Loft Literary center, two tall Caucasian college students from the U of M walked by and asked, "How much?" Then ten minutes later, a car stuck in traffic after the Gopher Basketball game, stopped in front of us and screamed, "Me love you long time." We do not speak with broken accents, and we did not come from a life of prostitution in a third world country. Since there are hardly any other images in the media about Asian women, whatever is shown in the media will become a ‘stereotyped’ truth that will continue to box me into a role I don't want to be a part of.” (Female/31/Korean adoptee)

Don't miss it.

* Finally, I've been completely remiss in not highlighting Juan Tornoe's excellent Hispanic Trending blog -- that is now the go-to-place in the blogosphere for up-to-date news and commentary on Latino marketing and advertising. Since he started his blog, I feel less compelled to throughly comb through the daily newswires for specific stories dealing with Hispanic marketing because I know he's doing a such a great job. Peep it today.

The Medium is the Measure

from dcuo

One of the possible motivations driving Nielsen to move so quickly in upgrading its ancient diary format to its Local People Meter system (LPM) is the increasing migration of viewers from broadcast television to cable. In the fragmented, specialized cable universe, it's far more difficult to gauge viewership based on respondent recollection and memory than an automated system that tracks it all for you.

Thus, there's always been a measure of discontent among cable television providers about Nielsen Media Research's inability to generate sufficient, reliable numbers for cable networks and programs. However, Nielsen's LPMs *are* a substantial improvement at tracking spot cable viewership, and early results reinforce that: cable ratings have indeed gone up, esp. in households of color.

While this certainly pleases some cable networks -- i.e. BET -- it has conversely upset giant broadcasters like News Corp. They aren't about to relinquish a greater share of $60 billion in advertising revenues to cable without putting up a fight, and TMB has been closely documenting the discord.

Nevertheless, it was revealed yesterday in this Advertising Age piece that several large cable providers -- Comcast and Cox Communications -- have been pursuing the possibility of establishing their own ratings measurement alternative to Nielsen's product, possibly out of frustration with the length of time it's taken for Nielsen to upgrade their system into the 21st century.

While LPMs are certainly a considerable improvement, there's still uncertainty over how well it tracks other cable features that providers want to know -- i.e., video-on-demand, TiVo, etc. Sure, it's only taken Nielsen 50 years to transition from pencil and paper to a digital metering device -- how long will it take to get the other stuff up?

UPDATE: In related news, Nielsen has hired multicultural advertising/PR firm, Burrell Communications, to counter Fox News Corp negative publicity in the continuing Local People Meter battle. Excerpt:

The agency said its goal is to "correct erroneous and misleading information circulating, according to news reports, as part of a multi-million campaign financed by News Corp." News Corp., a major opponent of Nielsen's local people meter system, has publicly acknowledged backing the efforts of Don't Count Us Out, an anti Nielsen advocacy group that is estimated to have spent more than $5 million on advertising, PR and lobbying efforts to stop Nielsen's roll out of the meters. News Corp. and DCUO maintain that the meters and their audience samples do not accurately measure TV viewing, particularly among African American and Latino households. Nielsen and Burrell did not disclose the advertising budget for the campaign, nor how long it would run.

Coding Mestizaje

Mandatory reading: If you want to understand America's racial future and the role Latinos -- specifically Mexican Americans -- play in its calculus, do yourself a favor and peep Gregory Rodriguez's article from yesterday's Los Angeles Times "An Unsettling Racial Score Card." Casting a spotlight on the current LACMA exhibition on Mexican caste paintings (castas), Gregory illuminates their significance in portraying race and mestizaje (racial mixing):

Casta paintings are perverse family portraits. They depict the race of the mother, father and offspring. Works of art and natural history, they also are instruments of racial oppression, the product of a white supremacist ideology that sought to control and provide a hierarchy for rampant racial mixing.

The paintings delineated racially mixed Mexicans according to their distance from the purity of European whiteness. They sought to educate viewers on the social consequences of forging interracial alliances. Certain combinations could help mixed families regain a semblance of whiteness. Others would only lower a family's status. If a woman of Spanish-Indian heritage married an Indian man, her child would be demoted in the social scale and might be labeled as a salta atrás—or a jump backward.

The offspring of these mixed unions—from the mestizos and the mulattoes to the zambos and the chinos—were forced to survive in society's in-between spaces. Deprived of a stable place in the social order and without firm roots in any one heritage, the racially mixed learned to thrive amid social, racial and cultural ambiguity.

Nevertheless, he makes it clear that while casta paintings attempted to codify various racial combinations into some kind of caste system, they neither mirrored nor prevented mestizaje as practiced by Mexicans in daily life:

For years, scholars believed that colonial Mexicans actually lived according to this intricate system of racial castes. They mistook these paintings as depictions of social reality. But the categories enshrined in casta paintings never came close to reflecting the variety and dynamism of colonial race relations. And while the minority white European elite was obsessed with racial purity, most Mexican commoners were not.

But while widespread mixture made enforcement of a true caste system impossible, the notion of a racial hierarchy did nonetheless influence the nation's self-image. Today the relative absence of dark-skinned actors on Mexican television is a legacy of this tradition. Some Latin American-born advertising executives have imported this prejudice to the United States. Their advertisements routinely feature light-skinned models in campaigns designed to target a Latino population that is distinctly heterogeneous.

Incidentally, as Gregory takes a swipe at Latin American media heads, you should also know this exhibit is actually being sponsored by Univision (I'm pretty sure he knows too). So what does mestizaje portend for America's racial self-image?

Ironically, given the United States' own tragic history of race relations, Mexican Americans have gradually liberated themselves from the pigmentocracy of the mother country. Perhaps the most significant legacy of the Chicano Movement was to remove the shame of brownness.

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Despite their billing, the casta paintings do not "celebrate" mestizaje. Their original intent was to reveal its dangers, and today they remain unsettling. There is little doubt that the American future will be mixed, and that is a far cry better than the racial segregation of our not-so-distant past. But the casta paintings, products of colonial Mexico, are nonetheless poignant reminders of the struggles that lie ahead here in the United States. While mestizaje will continue to break down racial and ethnic barriers, it will also sow confusion and instability; some identities will be lost while others will be born. We must resist the inevitable efforts to impose order on this chaos.

Read the whole thing.

Now if that weren't enough, Gregory's also got another engaging piece in today's L.A. Times on the trend of "white in-flight" back into L.A.'s urban core neighborhoods. Read that one here. Prolific bastard! (j/k, buddy)

Hat tip to Manny Gonzalez

Both Sides Claiming Victory

So the spinning continues. In the statement finally released by Don't Count Us Out today -- the coalition is also, unsurprisingly, claiming victory too. Here are a few highlights from their own press release "Senate Communications Sub-Committee Finds Serious Flaws With Nielsen's Local People Meter System":

Having opened the doors on Nielsen’s practices, the truth is now being revealed, and it is a disturbing picture. Today’s hearing clearly demonstrated that Nielsen has moved forward with its new local people meter rating system despite overwhelming evidence that it is deeply flawed and severely undercounts African American and Hispanic viewers. These flaws were discussed at length by all the panelists as well as both Senators. In fact, only Nielsen CEO Susan Whiting denied that the system significantly undercounts certain communities.

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The Don’t Count Us Out Coalition is pleased that both Senator Burns and Senator Boxer clearly indicated that today’s hearing is only the beginning of what will be a long process. At the end of the day the coalition is convinced that this process will lead to government oversight that will ensure a rating system that meets the needs of all communities and counts all viewers.

There's no question what Fox News Corp's agenda is now: government oversight of the ratings business. While this is surely hypocritical of Rupert Murdoch, won't this strategy also return to bite them in the ass? Since we already know Nielsen's sampling methodology is based on the same approach used by Census Bureau bean counters, does Fox think federal regulation over the broadcast ratings will produce a superior alternative?

Or, maybe it's that News Corp's figures an overriding government body will be easier to manipulate? After all, they've already pushed the issue this far into the Senate. To quote Fox themselves: I report, you decide!

Outfoxed? More From Nielsen ....

It sounds like the Senate hearings went well for Nielsen. Check out this second press release by the NY-based ratings provider (bold highlights mine):

Fox's desire for government intervention is a strange and self-serving plea from an organization that constantly uses its media outlets to rail against regulation. Nielsen and the overwhelming majority of its clients see no need for additional government involvement in this business. For more than 50 years, Nielsen has been an independent ratings service with no ties to the programming it measures, and it would be a mistake to introduce politics into what must remain a scientific, unbiased process.

We were pleased today that representatives of both the Senate and the House acknowledged that local people meters are an improvement over handwritten paper diaries in measuring TV ratings. We were particularly heartened that Congresswoman Maxine Waters said she is "delighted" that Nielsen has proceeded with the LPM roll-out, that Senator Barbara Boxer said she is "very reluctant to throw Big Brother into the mix," and that Senator Conrad Burns said there was no need for legislation.

Clearly it is the view of the Committee that the private sector should work out any issues related to TV ratings and we are fully committed to working within the media industry to resolve any outstanding issues, just as we have in the past.

Dear Rupert: there is such a thing as going overboard!

Nielsen Says ...

You can find Susan Whiting's full testimony from today's Senate hearings here (Adobe Reader required). Here's Nielsen's press release. Excerpt:

"Most important," added Ms. Whiting, "we will continue to resist all attempts to manipulate this process to mislead the public through a campaign that has nothing to do with protecting the rights of African Americans, Latinos or any other ethnic group, and everything to do with protecting the commercial self-interest of specific media companies."

Still waiting for Rupert Murdoch's mouthpiece (Don't Count Us Out) to respond to today's briefings.

Apparently, Not Everything's So Quiet On the LPM Front

While blogs are being touted as a far more responsive news medium than traditional print media, we're still bound by our geography and timely news sources apparently. Responding to my blog entry from this morning, my anonymous Staffer on the Hill reports straight from the eye of the hurricane:

Quiet?

It wasn't exactly all quiet today before the hearing tomorrow.

The Don't Count Us Out folks were all over the Hill in the last two days. They sent the Latinos to the Latino offices and the blacks to the black offices. The result: a few members will be testifying at the hearing tomorrow and a few others will be submitting statements for the record.

I expect those statements to be full of vague platitudes about the importance of accurate ratings to the community, without more than a shred of evidence for the basis of the concern. Expect the "by as much as 62 percent" figure to be repeated. And if you're lucky enough to get the statement in a Word version, look at the file properties. I'll bet 1000 bucks they were written by News Corp. lobbyists.

The Coalition members say they've had a problem with Nielsen for decades, and are just cruising in the wake that News Corp created to get some attention to their issues. They're right in part in that people are finally paying attention to some of their complaints. The trick is to know when to hop out of that wake lest they drown in the bullshit. The real problem isn't the ratings, it's the failure of the content producers to let a few Latinos on the cast and in the production houses without thinking they have to put up a Chicano version of Steppin Fetchit on TV.

Were poor ratings behind Fox's decision to cancel The Ortegas? That show never aired.

See, I'm sitting here in my office working on proposals and report deadlines (in Los Angeles, three hours behind the pending storm), I forget that the online newswires I depend on to keep up are still a day behind their news cycle! This is fantastic stuff.

Incidentally, Staffer on the Hill also mentions that their office has been getting 15 to 30 calls a day on their overnight voicemail system from "constituents" requesting that their elected representatives put a stop to Nielsen's racist ratings system. Problem is, all the calls are anonymous so there's no sure way of determining if these calls are legit.

If you ask me, I'd say the chances these calls are coming from a hired phone bank center (from India, the Phillipines, or Utah) is pretty high!

This Year's Latin Grammys, Spanglish, Etc.

My friend Manny Gonzalez -- a senior brand manager at Schieffelin & Somerset -- is dropping science. Yesterday, he sent a snarky, incisive email tirade about the upcoming Latin Grammy awards, the role of Spanglish, and Nielsen's People Meters that also scores some key points about Hispanic marketing in the process. So, I got his permission to reprint it here -- peep:

Spanglish shines at CBS and the Latin Grammys.

Check out this headline from a full-page ad in the current issue of Ocean Drive en Español (my bold) magazine.

"Finally un programa en tu idioma: spanglish."

Much to the chagrin, I'm sure, of the Spanish purists, this year's Latin Grammys and CBS are promoting the Sep 1 broadcast of the awards show on CBS for what it is: a celebration of Latino culture the U.S. Hispanic way.

Which renders a lot of the hullabaloo about Nielsen and their pinchi people meters all but meaningless. At the end of the day, a brand's success does NOT depend as much on its media choices, as it does on its core brand strategy. Sure, P&G spends a ton of money on English and Spanish-language media, but its brand management teams have never relinquished their responsibilities as chief stewards of their brands, to a bunch of young, media punks....any fool can number-crunch but it takes critical thinking to turn those numbers into a bigger market share for your brand . Like a lot of successful marketers, P&G spends a fortune on proprietary qualititative and quantitative research to help it properly position its brands in the marketplace. They certainly want Nielsen numbers to be reliable, but in the end, THEY do their OWN homework.

There is nothing more satisfying to a brand manager than to know exactly who his/her consumer is. Nielsen may be of some help, but it is hardly the starting point to getting to know your consumer. Some of the best brand strategizing and positioning stems from good ol' proprietary research.

The ongoing Nielsen debate now has developed into a spat between the Tomás Rivera Institute and Rincon Associates....puh-leeze! Yes, as we all know, it's essentially a fight over ad dollars but it's rapidly moving away from the more important debate of how to best market your brands to the ethnic consumer segments.

Remember that tools like Nielsen, Arbitron, and ABC are just that: tools....and tools that look at the PAST. The leading marketers combine these tools with their own proprietary research, insights and know-how, and yes, something called VISION....and they develop winning strategies. Successful brands have always been ahead of the curve--ahead of the competition. They don't wonder about trends as much as they set them....and when they do look at trends, they don't fall into analysis paralysis....they take a stand.

....so a Spanglish ad from CBS makes all the more sense. I guess it's not surprising for a company that has such a pioneering sister company called MTV. Go Sumner!

People Meter Update: Calm Before the Storm

All is quiet on the People Meter front. Like the calm before the storm, there's not a peep from either the Don't Count Us Out coalition or Everybody Counts websites on the eve of Senate Commerce committee hearings over the controversial TV ratings technology.

According to Broadcasting & Cable though, the heads of Nielsen (Susan Whiting) and Don't Count Us Out (Alex Nogales) did have a face-to-face meeting on July 1. Outcome? "Nogales says the meeting resolved nothing and that he has 'run out of patience.'"

Look for fireworks tomorrow. Let the sparks fly!

More White-Washing From Abercrombie

Oh yeah, those guys. I’m sure y’all are well aware of Abercrombie & Fitch, right? In the past several years, this clothing brand has caricatured Asian Americans with offensive images, discriminated against people of color in general, pissed off the entire state of West Virginia, and provoked the ire of parent and religious groups. In short, they’re real assholes.

Ignoring demography, they have managed to fetishize preppy whiteness as some kind of all-American ideal in the fashion world (even more so than WASP-y apparel icon Ralph Lauren if that's possible. Don’t be fooled by the sporadic tokenism of their catalogues). And so, their sales have been lackluster in the past couple years, but rather than trying to figure out how to repair their sullied image, they’re gonna make themselves even more exclusive instead:

Analysts say that his clothes are overpriced. Former employees say in a lawsuit that his company discriminates in hiring. West Virginia's governor is up in arms over a T-shirt that makes fun of his state. And that does not even count the many people long been outraged over Abercrombie's notoriously racy marketing catalog.

So what does Mr. Jeffries intend to do? Exactly the opposite of what his critics demand.

Basically, A&F’s CEO -- Michael Jeffries -- thinks the best course of action is raising the prices of their already over-priced wares even further, denying that any kind of racial discrimination ever took place, while vowing to continue their hiring practices. They may even print more potentially insulting t-shirts. Consequences be damned:

"The people who are intimidated are not our customers," Mr. Jeffries said, wearing the company's summer "uniform," a striped shirt hanging out over baggy khaki shorts and flip-flop sandals. "We want college kids, the ones who aspire to be the coolest. We've been voted the third coolest brand, after Nike, and, I think, Sony."

Being cool only goes so far, though. Mr. Jeffries freely concedes that it has been a rocky year for the $1.7 billion Abercrombie chain. While overall growth has continued because of expansions, the retailer's sales at stores open a least a year, the measure that many in the industry consider the most important gauge of performance, have been disappointing for many months.

Not everyone thinks that this is a good idea, and at least one analyst acknowledges where A&F is losing their market share to (hint: it’s not all-American white bread style):

But analysts say that the slump in same-store sales in the last few years indicates serious problems. Burt Flickinger III, a managing director for Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm in New York, says the company is being too aggressive in raising prices.

"Same-store sales are soft, customer counts are a real concern,'' he said, "so they'll try higher price points and lower units as a way of raising profit margins."

Mr. Flickinger cited the trend towards hip-hop and urban wear, which he said was sapping some of the strength of preppy brands like Abercrombie and Tommy Hilfiger.

I won't put the A&F strategy above people, since worse things have been tried and succeeded, but all of this strikes me as incredibly stupid. Wake up, Mr. Jeffries -- your world is shrinking. Read about the full Abercrombie & Fitch travesty in today's New York Times.

A Damaged Nielsen Means ...?

Not much new stuff about the pending Senate hearings scheduled for this Thursday on Nielsen's People Meters. However, there's this article in yesterday's AP that offers a possible hint into Fox News Corp's motivations:

Otherwise, despite those years of grumbling, other networks have conspicuously stayed away from News Corp.'s campaign. Some executives privately believe a tradition of working out problems internally between Nielsen and the networks is best. They worry about a damaged Nielsen because there's no immediate alternative.

"I think that News Corp.'s end game is to so thoroughly discredit Nielsen that the government will allow them to come up with a ratings system that the industry can control, and that system will be designed to give them higher ratings," Loftus said.

The people behind the campaign said they ultimately want to make sure that Nielsen is more responsive and accurate.

"We think, at the end of the day, people will have greater confidence and faith in a ratings service that has been subject to scrutiny and held accountable for its accuracy," said Tom Herwitz, president of Fox station operations.

How this endgame will playout is beyond me, but Fox has rolled the dice on this one to totally discredit Nielsen. But there's no guarantee they'll be able to garner a government ruling to mandate minimal TV rating measurement standards, and may in fact be unintentionally pushing a different outcome from the debate: busting Nielsen as a monopoly. We'll see.

Showdown Thursday!

What Is It About Korean Women?

This blog entry is dedicated to a select group of my friends -- y'all know who you are pervs! In this bizarre article "What is it about Korean Women that Western Men Like?" there's a weird attempt to explicate the (recent?) appeal of Korean women among American celebs like Nicholas Cage, Wesley Snipes, and of course the biggest freaky sicko of all, Woody Allen. Suprisingly, the article gets it all wrong! To boot:

Why are American film stars into Korean women? Kenny, an executive at a LA Koreatown broadcasting company, said in an interview with a Korean broadcaster that, “Korean women are submissive and kind. They are known to make breakfast, lunch and dinner for their husbands, help their husbands well, and raise children well." There are also those who feel that in the eyes of Western men, East Asian women possess a sort of mysteriousness about them. They say that one can grow fond of the unknown “Orient." 24-year-old James Cecil, an American living in Korea, said, “Even Korean women who are not though of as pretty by Korean men can give a sense of mystery to Western men.” 29-year-old English teacher Mike Conforty said, “Korean women are gentle, feminine and quiet. I think Korean women are the prettiest of all East Asian women.”

Western men also seem to find the purity and conservativeness of Korean women attractive. 25-year-old USFK soldier Blake Selesnew said, “American women are too materialistic, but Korean women aren’t. They seem less snobby.” Korea University English instructor Zane Ivy said, “Korean women are conservative. They are conscience of what people around them think, depend on their families and parents and are submissive.”

Oh, you mean like Margaret Cho? Okay, okay, that may be an extreme anti-example. But the stereotypes are all the more surprising because the article apparently comes from a Korean publication and some quotes come from Koreans themselves. They know better! I don't know about you, but the Korean American women I know unequivocably do not fit the bill. As friends of mine who have dated Korean girls can attest ...

(spotted at Angry Asian Man)

It's Hip to be Naco

Here's a story that should draw a chuckle from my Latino friends. As I drove to my lunch appointment yesterday, I heard this story about "Nacos" on NPR's Day to Day. What is a naco? Here's one definition from urbandictionary.com:

Naco: A poor looking tasteless no class tacky person.

Word is commonly used among Mexicans

Loria looks like a naca wearing here frizzy bangs, crusty long acrylic toe nails, "Just" Jeans, and her fake ass Coach bag.

"Don't be a naco dude, please don't put bull horns and a horse saddle on your 1981 beat up low rider truck".

As you can imagine, the term is generally a pejorative one -- albeit one that is widely used among Mexicans. The word also has racist overtones, as it's frequently used to describe indigeneous native Mexicans. But, according to the Day to Day story, the term is now being reappropriated by young people as something cool. Embrace your inner naco hipness:

All the young women agree that it's easy to point out the nacolike traits of others, but that you can never admit to being one yourself. That's not true for entrepreneur Carlos Meza, who's celebrating his inner naco. Meza and some friends started out three years ago selling naco pride T-shirts at rock concerts. The idea took off, and now the brand of clothing is sold in upscale boutiques throughout Mexico and Southern California. Meza says naco is more about personal style than class or wealth.

Mr. CARLOS MEZA: Some people would say that it attains to a lower class of Mexican, but I think that a naco is also the guy with diamond rings and a Mercedes-Benz with neon lights. To me that's more of a naco than somebody who doesn't have the money to buy that.

Meza's partner and company manager Fernando Garcia says the goal is to turn the concept of naco on its head. Being a little bit naco is now cool. Garcia picks up a black T-shirt with the word nakissimo, but it's spelled na-kiss-imo. This logo is familiar to anyone, like me, of a certain generation.
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Mr. GARCIA: All of the band members in KISS would be considered nacos if they were Mexican. I mean, if you go out on stage with makeup on your head and wearing tight pants and leather, that would be very naco.

Not everyone is amused:

But for Carlos Monsivais, this trend of cool nacoism misses the point about the word's origin. Monsivais has been one of Mexico's leading social critics for the past 40 years. He says that `naco' is a racist word and derivative of Totonaco, a tribe of dark-skinned indigenous people from Veracruz state.

Mr. CARLOS MONSIVAIS: It's so aggressive, it's impossible to redeem the word. When a rock group use naco, the name is tying to ironize.

Monsivais says irony has no place here, and that most Mexicans use the word as a put-down of both the lower class and indigenous people. Still, talking to people throughout Mexico City, it's clear that the word has changed over time and means different things to people of different generations.

Listen to the entire story here.

Bingo: Spanish vs. English Media Emerges in LPM Wars

This Media Post article nails it. As I pointed out back on June 23 in "Setting the Record Straight", there are two competing agendas between Univision and the National Hispanic Media Coalition (ringleaders of Don't Count Us Out) in their battles against Nielsen Media Research. In examining the Tomas Rivera report, the article exploits the division: Univision wants to ensure the LPM sample safeguards their vaunted ad revenues for Spanish-speaking audiences, while NHMC, on the other hand, hopes to ensure greater representation of Latinos on the mainstream airwaves. Afterall, if NHMC can demonstrate that programs like the George Lopez Show have a sizable audience, it means more work for Latinos in the industry. The key grafs:

The problem, said the authors, was that the coalition, an integral part of the News Corp.-backed anti-Nielsen group Don't Count Us Out, is more interested in advancing the agenda of "Latino media elites" among English-language media outlets, than it is in getting an accurate representation of Latinos in the overall media community, including both Spanish- and English-language media.

That conclusion reveals how two different Latino-based Nielsen opponents - the coalition and Univision - are actually operating at cross-purposes. Univision is suing Nielsen on the grounds that its local people meter samples do not accurately represent Spanish-speaking Latinos and that they over-represent English-speaking Latinos.

Now what about Asian Americans you ask? Isn't this a group that Nielsen has openly admitted to undercounting?

Interestingly, while there has been tremendous opposition to the roll out of local people meters in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago from Latino and African American pressure groups, there has been nary a voice of protest regarding its introduction in San Francisco, a market with a significant Asian American population. That's interesting, because Nielsen's own assessment of a Media Rating Council audit of the local people meter system in New York concluded that the only ethnic group that was actually under-represented was Asian Americans.

Well let's see, why would that be? You think the fact that there are no Asian American themed shows on network television (much less any talent) and that Asian-language TV stations don't use Nielsen data has something to do with it?

But let's maintain some perspective here -- the writer gives far too much credence to the "tremendous opposition" being raised by African American and Latino groups. A great deal of the pressure groups organized against Nielsen are fronts. And thin ones at that. Most legit community organizations are probably standing on the sidelines wondering what all the fuss is about, while prominent community leaders (i.e. Jesse Jackson) have balked at even getting involved.

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.

A Concession For Univision?

Nielsen Media Research throws Univision a bone.

Nielsen Releases TRPI Study

Someone at Nielsen Media Research has been reading TMB. How do I know? Well, after openly wondering in my post yesterday just when Nielsen planned on publicly releasing the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute report, they indeed released it today. Here is the news release, and you can download the full report here.

Some brief history and context on this: Back in February, research firm Rincon & Associates was commissioned by the National Latino Media Coalition (leaders of the Don't Count Us Out horde) to scrutinize Nielsen Media Research's approach in sampling and recruiting Latino households as part of its TV ratings system. The final report was very critical of Nielsen's methodology, and the study has since been cited and used as artillery by the anti-Nielsen faction as evidence of People Meters' fundamental flaws in properly tracking the TV viewing habits of ethnic households.

Nielsen -- believing the study's results were biased -- countered by contracting the estimable Tomas Rivera Policy Institute to carefully examine Rincon & Associates' results.

TMB will spend some time (if I can find any) perusing the report, but in the meantime, here is an excerpt from the press release:

The TRPI team that reviewed the controversial survey found no documented proof to support assertions that People Meters do not reliably measure Latino viewing behavior. Moreover, the study determined that Rincon's own study sample was less accurate than the NLMC had claimed in numerous news accounts. However, Harry Pachon, Ph.D., TRPI President cautioned that, "media organizations like Nielsen and Rincon need to be mindful of the changing demographics and nuances that are present in our minority communities."

More from me later -- gotz lots of great stuff ahead. Including inside tips from a congressional staffer on the Hill!

The New and Improved Melting Blog

That's right denizens of the blogosphere, this blog has finally gone legit. As you can probably tell from this site's redesign, TMB now has multi-bloggedy functionality through Movable Type -- as I promised back in, what, January? It's been a long time coming, and there have been plenty gaffes, goof-ups, and errors along the way -- none of which I care to recollect. Thus, let's just go straight into the news items and bypass the pageantry, shall we?

* Okay, following Nielsen's opening round victory over Univision in court last Thursday, four new members have been announced to join an independent Task Force that will study Nielsen's measurement system and its impact on people of color. This task force was announced well over a month ago but I didn't find it sufficiently interesting to mention it at the time -- until now: Yes, that's right, it's because Mr. George Takei of Star Trek fame will be on it! Not only that, but he's also the only member of the task force who is Asian American. Represent Mr. Sulu, represent!

* Speaking of the Nielsen LPM controversy, now that Univision has pretty much bungled its attempt to block the LPM rollout, why hasn't the Fox-sponsored Don't Count Us Out coalition made good on its own promise to file another lawsuit against the TV ratings provider? Might it be the fact that their case is extremely thin?

* Speaking of which, will the audit conducted by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute ever be made public? I'm certain it's been completed, but Nielsen must be guarding it real tightly due to that Ernst & Young audit leaked to the L.A. Times a few weeks ago. Remember: the TRPI audit is probably the most credible, impartial scrutiny of Nielsen's LPM sampling that's currently out there. Hmm... I wonder if it's being saved for the Senate Panel investigating this controversy.

More later -- as the inspiration hits!

The Giant Robots Themselves

Following the heels of their appearance on Elvis Mitchell's show I cited last week, the creative geniuses behind Giant Robot, aka Martin Wong and Eric Nakamura, now have a feature profile in Elvis' old employer, the venerated Gray Lady herself. Not only are these trendsetting purveyors of Asian American hipness hawking bizarre art, yellow fashion, and pop culture minutae -- impressive by itself -- they're getting it on as restauranteurs too:

But as the magazine celebrates its 10th anniversary this month it exerts a powerful influence that belies its tiny budget. It is one of the chief arbiters of what is cool (and by extension what is not) in Asian-American pop culture, a tricky job that other, better-financed magazines like Yolk tried and did not survive.

Mr. Nakamura, 34, and Giant Robot's other founder, Martin Wong, 35, have spoken at Harvard and Stanford and are sought after by journalists and advertisers for their views on matters as varied as racism, comic books and Asian pornography. Their magazine has become required reading in several college classes and recently helped start the fad for Uglydolls, a set of homely stuffed toys sold at Barneys and the Design Museum of London. Los Angeles Magazine, in some ways a competitor, has called Giant Robot "probably the best publication to come out of L.A. in the last decade."

Probably more exciting for its founders, however, is that they are now successful enough to make the leap that it seems everyone in pop culture dreams about: they are opening their own restaurant, in West Los Angeles.

"I know, it's a big cliché," Mr. Nakamura said sheepishly in a recent telephone interview, adding: "We don't know what kind of place it will be yet. But it sure won't be burgers and grilled cheese."

There's no accounting for taste, and the one significant thing that has distinguished Wong and Nakamura's publication from their Asian American counterparts is their own finely-honed sense for both identifying and discovering the next hip thing on the street before it becomes commodified hipness, and more importantly, saying no to other things that don't fit into those sensibilities -- even if they are Asian American too (this is something I believe hurt their predecessors like aMagazine and Yolk who tried to be everything-Asian-American-under-the-sun):

They wrote about Hong Kong movies and celebrities like Chow Yun-Fat, John Woo and Jet Li years before they became popular in the United States, but they once declined an offer to interview Jackie Chan because he had become too mainstream. And they often angered Asian-American promoters who saw them as allies.

"Usually it was these really terrible P.R. companies saying, `If you really cared about Asians, you'd write about this Asian actress,' " Mr. Wong explained. "But we're just not interested in mediocre Asian actors in mainstream movies."

Mr. Nakamura described the magazine as "the punk-rock kids in the corner who didn't get invited to the parties," but more often it has seemed that the magazine is the one not inviting people to its party.
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Jeff Yang, who founded another successful Asian-American culture magazine called aMagazine in Brooklyn in 1989, did not always agree with Giant Robot's irreverent stance, but he said he always respected the magazine's pluck. (He watched his own magazine, a kind of Asian-American Vanity Fair, grow to a circulation of 200,000 before it folded in 2001 after what he called a "Faustian bargain" with the Internet world.)

"Frankly, if you're publishing on guts and a shoestring and talent like those guys you can hang on as long as they have," Mr. Yang said.

I think it was probaby more than a Faustian bargain that drove aMagazine out of business. But that's another blog entry for another time. To Mr. Yang's point, special interest-based publications like Giant Robot survive on their creators' passions and thrive based on their vision. Wong and Nakamura have demonstrated ample amounts of both.

The evidence of their success is palpable: 10 years in business running, a growing roster of corporate advertisers, readers across the color spectrum, and I'm sure a whole lot of fun in the process.

Read the whole thing people.

Univision's Injuction Denied!

And so the opening bell has rung, and the winner of the first round in the Local People Meter Battle Royale is: Nielsen Media Research. From today's Los Angeles Times:

A judge Thursday denied Univision Communications Inc.'s request to halt next week's rollout of a controversial new TV ratings measurement system in Los Angeles.

Univision, the nation's leading Spanish-language broadcaster, wanted the judge to block Nielsen Media Research's use of its "local people meters" system in Los Angeles, contending that the proposed sample audience underrepresented Spanish-speaking Latinos in the nation's largest Latino market.

Los Angeles-based Univision argued that Nielsen was intent on releasing flawed and deceptive TV station ratings.

But Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger was not convinced that the system would irreparably harm Univision or the region's Spanish-speaking Latinos.

Univision, the judge said, failed to provide sufficient evidence that use of the local people meters was "unfair, unlawful or a fraudulent business practice."

Czuleger also said he was troubled that Univision's request for an injunction appeared to tread on 1st Amendment protections.

Blocking Nielsen's planned conversion next Thursday to people meters could be considered a prior restraint on the release of ratings for all TV stations in Los Angeles.

The case is not over, however. The judge agreed to set a trial date next month.

Univision lawyers said they would push for a speedy trial.

Continue reading "Univision Loses Request To Halt Nielsen System" Round Two is coming up -- that small bit about Univision's claims of "defamation"! It ain't over til the fat lady sings...

Read more about yesterday's ruling here, here, and here.

Protesting Nielsen's People Meters

Today's weekly LPM news comes to us from Chi-town, where the President of Nielsen Media Research President, Susan Whiting, has marched straight into the lion's den (you'd think) in speaking at the 2004 Black Consumer Research and Advertising Summit. Here's some highlights from her discussion in today's Chicago Tribune report:

"In 62 years of our business, we've never had anyone attack our business this way," said Whiting, who singled out Fox and News Corp. for fueling what she called a "News Corp. owned and operated controversy."

Whiting chalked up Fox's and Univision's objections to financial concerns.

"Fox was particularly unhappy with some big declines that they were seeing in ratings for some of their shows under the people meter," she said, citing "The Parkers," a sitcom with African-American themes, as an example. "As a result, they accused Nielsen of undercounting people of color, organized a group called the Don't Count Us Out coalition and funded them to a fare-thee-well."

Apparently, the fireworks weren't even inside the conference. They were outside -- where protestors were picketing Whiting and Nielsen at the entrance of the Wyndam Hotel. Now if you still aren't convinced that this whole controversy is something cooked up by Fox News Corp., you'd have to at least admit that the following exchange is a bit, how should we say, fishy:

Almost all of the protesters wore pins bearing the name of The Woodlawn Organization, a South Side community group led by Rev. Leon Finney. When one protester was asked why he opposed Nielsen's meters, Patrick O'Connor, an employee of Jasculca/Terman, a public relations firm, intervened, saying, "You probably want to wait for Finney to get here--he's a little more well-versed."

Truly laughable. One interesting thing to note about Rev. Finney is that he chaired Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign back in 1988. Which raises the question: where is Jesse? Isn't this his hometown? Isn't he the seasoned veteran of these kinds of corporate shakedowns -- most infamously in the case of Toyota and Texaco? Well, astonishingly, Jesse Jackson thinks this whole matter is a bogus issue too:

Earlier this week at the Rainbow PUSH conference the reverend Jesse Jackson broke ranks with some other civil rights leaders and announced his support for the Nielsen plan. -- "Reverend Jesse Jackson has a right to have an opinion. We do not share that opinion," Rev. Finney said.

Like I said, never boring! More to follow...