NEW YORK – More than a year after a campaign was launched against Nielsen Media Research for fear that a new counting system would shortchange blacks, Nielsen says blacks are watching more television in all six cities that are using the new electronic meters.
Its critics remain unsatisfied, and the Senate held a hearing last month on a bill that would require greater oversight of the company that has a monopoly over measuring TV audiences.
Nielsen, which prefers a low public profile, was thrust into the spotlight when a coalition spearheaded by News Corp. complained about the switch. Participating Nielsen families now have their viewing tracked by an electronic meter, instead of relying on memory to fill out paper diaries.
Test runs showed alarming ratings decreases among some shows popular with black audiences. If ratings slip, television stations earn less in advertising revenue and the show’s survival is ultimately threatened.
Nielsen had problems a year ago recruiting and keeping families, and in building a sample that accurately reflected a population’s ethnic composition, said David Poltrack, chief researcher for CBS and UPN.
“There has been a real full-frontal attack on this challenge by Nielsen and that has resulted in significant improvements,” he said.
Nielsen has staunchly defended the accuracy of its numbers throughout the dispute. But Karen Gyimesi, a Nielsen spokeswoman, admitted the critics have “definitely” helped the company improve its service.
Hidden beneath the overall viewership increases are numbers that have some television executives nervous.
The new “people meter” results show ratings higher for smaller networks than they were in the diaries, simply because people are less apt to recall and write down the times they surfed away during commercials. This could hurt the bigger networks.
In Washington, for example, Nielsen last year showed 15 percent of blacks watching TV in its time slot were tuned in to UPN’s “Girlfriends.” This year, that share had dropped to 9 percent. The black audience for “Oprah” also declined 30 percent during the same period in Washington.
That may partly explain the continued activity of the Don’t Count Us Out Coalition, a group of anti-Nielsen activists whose activities are bankrolled in part by News Corp. The corporation, which owns the Fox network, also owns UPN stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington.
The coalition is concerned that Nielsen results from black families are thrown out of the sample more frequently than those of whites because of problems with the numbers, spokesman Josh Lahey said. Nielsen said its “fault rates” are improving.
“You’ve got a large group of people that we don’t know what they’re watching,” said Tom Herwitz, president of station operations for the Fox television group.
The News Corp.-owned stations are particularly worried that fault rates are very high among young black families, just the sort of audience that would be most interested in UPN’s upcoming new comedy with Chris Rock, “Everybody Hates Chris,” he said.
The coalition is backing federal legislation that would require Nielsen to receive accreditation from the Media Rating Council before introducing new technology like the people meters. The MRC, a group of television and advertising executives formed at Congress’ request in 1964, can only advise Nielsen.
Nielsen is opposing the legislation, arguing that submitting each change for outside approval will limit the company’s ability to improve and make viewership measurements as accurate as possible.
“I’d like them to be able to answer how they would think government regulation is really going to help the marketplace,” Gyimesi said.
Nielsen’s critics prefer that things don’t change, so nothing in their ratings will ever change, she said.
Nielsen spent more and worked harder to improve its operations in the past year precisely because they were being closely watched, its critics say. Josh Lahey, a spokesman for “Don’t Count Us Out,” said that’s one of the biggest arguments in favor of the legislation.
“When nobody is paying attention to what Nielsen is doing,” he said, “they are going to go off and do what they want to do.”
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