The Good Life - MultiBillion Dollar Monopolies…Broken Promises and Missing Studies

IT MUST BE NICE!

Ahhh… the beauty of being a multi-billion dollar monopoly. I guess, you can pretty much say and do whatever you want.

In a meeting with me and my colleagues at the 2006 Natpe convention (January ‘06), Nielsen executives said that they were getting ready to conduct an INDEPENDENT research study on the impact of Nativity (U.S. born / non U.S. born) on Hispanic ratings and that we should have the results of that study by August of 2006.

While that is a bit like announcing a study on the link of smoking and lung cancer, we bit, took Nielsen at its word (MISTAKE!) and pretty much hiatused our “Change The Sample” efforts.

Well, August comes and goes and it is apparent that either we were misled at the January meeting or if there WAS a new 2006 study conducted, somebody didn’t like the results because NOW, acccording to Hispanic Market Weekly article they are citing a 2003 study! Let’s see, the list of excuses keeps changing, I’m counting FIVE different answers to ONE simple question.

1) NIELSEN SAYS - “It’s an outrageous invasion of Privacy…” Nielsen’s Jack Loftus, Nov. 10th, 2005 - Mediaweek AIM RESPONDS: Then how does Nielsen get so much more detailed information such as the # of Mexicans, Guatemalans, Puerto Ricans, etc. in their survey. That is much more invasive! 2) NIELSEN SAYS - “Mr. Rose offers no data to support his claims” - Nielsen’s Jack Loftus, Cynopsis MCE 11.16.05

AIM RESPONDS: We’ve used nothing but 3rd party, published research such as “US Census Data” (ever heard of them Jack?), “Tomas River Policy Inst.”, ”Pew Hispanic Center”, “Rincon & Associates”, ”Hispanic Media Coalition”, ”New American Dimensions”… whew! My fingers hurt from typing all that.

3) NIELSEN SAYS “Mr. Rose has shown no interest in taking his case to the industry…” Nielsen’s Jack Loftus, Cynopsis MCE 11.16.06
AIM RESPONDS: Hey Jack, are you reading the trades? Going to conventions? The whole CTS campaign IS an industry initiative? Come down from the Ivory Tower occasionally my man. 4) NIELSEN SAYS - “AIM hasn’t been forthcoming in what they want…” Nielsen’s Jack Loftus, Video Age January 2006.AIM RESPONDS: We presented to Nielsen this information months before “Change The Sample” or “Help Change TV” was launched and the information is right on the website. It’s very, very simple.

ONE MORE TIME: Hispanic samples should match U.S. Census data on Nativity (U.S. born & non U.S. born) so we can see what TV programs Hispanics truly watch. You’re a research company and that confuses you?

5) NIELSEN SAYS - “All our research indicates that language spoke is a far better predictor of television viewing behavior than nativity” says Monica Gil, spokeswomen for Nielsen. The Company bases its decision on a comprehensive, internal research study conducted in 2003… Hispanic Market Weekly, 11.20.06

AIM RESPONDS: “uhhh, excuse me. Sorry to bring this up but “what happened to the study that you promised us in January ‘06? Where has this 2003 study been hiding? Why is it internal? That’s sort of like me auditing my own taxes.

When I asked Nielsen’s Monica Gil recently about the January ‘06 meeting at NATPE and the “missing study”, she said she didn’t remember that being part of the conversation. Monica was pretty new at that point, so I guess it is possible it slipped her mind. But what of the other folks at that meeting, do they remember it? Nielsen’s Paul Donato, Kevin Svennington, Michele Orlick?

Well I have allot on my mind these days but I remember that meeting and that promise plain as day (as does my colleague). That was pretty much the entire meeting, how could you NOT remember it.

In MY business, if you make a promise you can’t or don’t keep, your out of business. Of course, we’re not a multibillion dollar monopoly.

It must be nice.

The Toronto Globe-Mail Gets it. Why doesn’t Nielsen?

We thought today’s article on “Help! Change TV” from Simon Houpt of the Toronto Globe and Mail was well written and enlightening.They saw the bus campaign in NYC and felt compelled to research the issues.


Which begs the question: “If the Canadian Press clearly recognizes the issue, why doesn’t Nielsen?”


FOR PDF CUT AND PASTE THIS LINK IN BROWSER:
http://aimtvgroup.com/hctv/press/GLOBEREVIEW.pdf


Toronto Globe & Mail –
Globe Review Monday December 11th, 2006
By Simon Houpt / New York Diary

Producer battles Nielsens over missing Latinos

12-11-06

Hispanics are hot! Shakira and her hips shimmy up the charts. Mexican directors Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel), Alfonso Puaron (Children of Men) and Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) are Hollywood’s flavours of the month. Hispanics are now a larger minority in the United States than African-Americans. You can’t open an advertising-industry magazine these days without hearing about the importance of the exploding Latino market.

Not that you’d know it by watching U.S. network television. True, the Colombian-spawned Ugly Betty is one of the season’s few breakout hits. But beyond Betty’s braces and Eva Longoria’s catty sexpot on Desperate Housewives, there are woefully few Hispanic leading men and women on network TV. The George Lopez Show (currently on hiatus on ABC) illustrates the dearth: As if recognizing its role in U.S. culture as The Token Hispanic Show, its web page points viewers to sites about Hispanic art, culture and business opportunities.


“The only time they put Latinos on TV is when they’re on the news, or there’s an immigration debate,” Robert Rose told me the other day. Rose is a 39-year-old businessman, a former employee of the wealthy Spanish-language TV network Univision, who now operates out of a cramped and ramshackle office in an unglamorous part of town.


Last week, sitting beneath a portrait of Che Guevara, Rose outlined the guerrilla campaign that he and a handful of colleagues have started to try to change the face of U.S. television.

The problem, he says, is simple: Nielsen Media Research, the ratings company, doesn’t include enough U.S.-born Latino viewers in its audience sample. (About 60 per cent of U.S. Latinos are native-born.)

By including too many foreign born Latino viewers who don’t speak English, he believes Nielsen is giving the mistaken impression that Hispanics watch only Spanish-language TV.

“It leads to the marginalization of Latinos on TV, which leads to the marginalization of Latinos in society,” he said. It also suggests the 40 million Hispanics aren’t interested in assimilating, which runs directly counter to most of the available social, economic and political data.

Last month, Rose kicked off his low-budget effort to pressure Nielsen, placing local radio promos and buying about 100 ads on the backs of buses that feature a striking image: a woman with a piece of duct tape over her mouth, on which has been scrawled the word “Nielsen.”

The campaign calls on viewers to visit a website, HelpChangeTV.com, where they can sign a petition calling for a change in the viewing sample.

Nielsen currently tries to ensure its Hispanic sample matches the language preferences of the wider U.S. Hispanic population. (The sample is sliced into five categories, ranging from Spanish Only to English Only.) It ignores nativity, or place of birth.


But Rose argues nativity is far more important in determining viewing habits. His case is intuitively true: How many second generation immigrants do you know, even those who still speak their mother tongue in the home, who spurn the tacky bazaar of American pop culture?

Nielsen, which is already under attack from the TV industry for failing to adapt to new viewing technologies, has shot back with a volley of arguments, none of which are very convincing.


But if you look at the numbers, something seems severely out of whack. Take Ugly Betty. Despite heavy promotion in Hispanic communities that trumpeted them show’s
South American origins and its executive producer and occasional star Salma Hayek, Nielsen concluded that the show’s early episodes performed dismally among Hispanics,
drawing only about 768,000 out of a total audience of about 16 million. (That is, less than 2 per cent of Hispanics tuned in versus about 5 per cent of the general population.)


“A Latin-themed show did worse among Hispanics than it did among everybody else?” asked Rose. “That math just doesn’t add up. “Think of how much bigger a hit it would be if they accurately monitored Hispanics,” Rose continued. “Think about the implications if ABC looked at their numbers and said: ‘You know what, 25 per cent of our viewership for this show are Hispanics and it’s a hit, let’s get some more shows featuring Latino characters.’


“All of a sudden viewers would see that Latinos aren’t these evil people crossing the border, taking their jobs and denigrating the culture by only speaking Spanish. They see that Latinos are doctors, lawyers, they’re integrated into our society.”


Nielsen understandably doesn’t want to rock the boat. Univision is the company’s largest Spanish language client. Nielsen research consistently finds the 10 most popular


Spanish-language shows are on Univision, which naturally wouldn’t be interested in seeing data suggesting their viewership is actually sharply lower. And the Spanish-language ad agencies have little incentive to tell their clients they’ve helped facilitate a multibillion-dollar sham.


There’s a kicker, though: Rose is in it for the money, too. His company, AIM Tell-A-Vision, produces and syndicates English-language TV entertainment magazines that celebrate Hispanic culture, with titles like American Latino TV and LatiNation.


If he can prove his viewing numbers are higher than the ratings indicate, he could be a rich man. So he’s trying to do well by doing good. But that doesn’t negate his argument.


“There’s been an explosion of Latin film, there was an explosion in Latin music. No explosion in Latin TV? I wonder why? What’s the one thing Latin TV has that those other two don’t have?” Rose asked rhetorically. “The Nielsen ratings service and a flawed methodology.”


On Thursday, I was on the line with a Nielsen spokesperson when I mentioned that I’d heard the company, under public pressure at a TV convention last January, had promised to study the issue and get back to Rose by the summer. But there had been no follow-up.

The spokesperson excused himself and said he’d get back to me.

I’m still waiting for his call.

By

Simon Houpt
New York Diary
shoupt@globeandmail.com