Nielsen: The Monopoly

Here is a most interesting article that I had not seen before yesterday. It's testimony from Pat Mullen of Tribune Broadcasting to Congress in 2005. The bill, the Fair Ratings Act, shows the need to change the way Nielsen operates. The bill is described as "A bill to provide for the accuracy of television ratings services, and for other purposes."


"My name is Pat Mullen. Our company, Tribune Broadcasting, operates 26 major market television stations located in 15 states from coast to coast, including stations in 8 of the 10 largest markets.

Mr. Chairman, I regret to say that the measurement system we have today in the largest television markets is not worthy of public trust. It does not have the trust of our company or that of more than a dozen other responsible broadcasters.

The problem, Mr. Chairman, is that the keys to our success -- our ratings -- are held by a monopoly. When Nielsen had a competitor, its service and its response to client concerns were substantially better than they are today. In the absence of competition, we are left to plead for fair treatment and reliable results. Time and time again, Nielsen has turned us away.

We have no choice but to do business with Nielsen. Ratings are the currency on which the advertising business operates. And despite recent challenges, our company has always had a good relationship with Nielsen. So we are here today reluctantly, but with a sense of urgency.

Sampling issues abound, including problems with response rates, in-tab representation and fault rates. For example:

* New York's LPM response rate averaged 25.3 percent for the week ending July 3, 2005. This means that three out of every four households initially designated as sample households refused installation of a people meter in their home or accepted a meter but did not contribute any viewing data.
* Young men ages 18-34 have been persistently under-represented in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Fault rates for men 18-34 generally are twice as high as those for men ages 55+ in LPM samples.
* Fault rates remain unacceptably high for important audience segments such as African Americans and Hispanics despite new coaching initiatives. On the average day in New York for the week ending July 10, the viewing choices of nearly one-third of the black and Hispanic men ages 18-34 in the LPM sample were not reflected in the ratings.
* Chicago sample data for the week ending July 10th show that almost one-third of the 443 African Americans installed in the sample were not in tab — meaning their television viewing was not counted in the ratings.
* Households of five persons or more have been persistently under-represented in the total samples in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston. In New York, for the week ending July 10, the viewing choices of more than one in four of the black and Hispanic households of 5 or more persons in the LPM sample were not reflected in the ratings.
* Fault rates for households of five or more are generally two to three times as high as in one-person households."


What happened to this bill? Read here.

Nuts To Nielsen Video

Thanks to NorsU and all those who made it happen.

Nielsen, Nuts, and Moonlight

"TV ratings giant Nielsen Media Research on Tuesday hosted perhaps the strangest protest in the company's history — in fact, the first protest of any sort that company officials can recall happening.

Just more than 1,000 pounds of fresh, salted, still-in-the-shell peanuts were delivered to the loading dock of Nielsen's Oldsmar campus as part of a protest by determined fans of the now-canceled TV show "Jericho."

That's 21 50-pound canvas sacks of peanuts — $1,212 worth — all bought and paid for by "Jericho" fans who want to bring the show back to television and blame Nielsen for issuing the low ratings that CBS cited in canceling the show."


Florida Nielsen workers are furious.

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Just read that Moonlight has been cancelled.




"CBS' vampire drama "Moonlight" will not rise again.

Sources confirm the fan favorite will not be renewed by the network for a second season.

CBS declined to pickup the series because it was failing to hold its "Ghost Whisperer" lead-in and declined in the ratings post-strike. Last Friday's episode garnered a 2.0 rating among adults 18 to 49.

The news will doubtlessly devastate "Moonlight" fans, which have been very passionate for the show by any standard. Recently fans organized a nationwide blood drive to rally viewer support for a renewal.

Nuts Day In Oldsmar

Update: Many thanks to ChiGal76

"Mission accomplished, Nors! Micky's truck showed up at 12:03 PM by my car's clock. There were a group of people standing outside in the loading bay looking nervous for about 20 minutes beforehand. Noon was a great time, because people were out on their lunch breaks. I parked near the loading bay. I missed the arrival of the Micky's truck because I didn't record it properly. THere were 2 HUGE bags of nuts on the back of this white panel truck with signs that said "NUTS TO NIELSEN: SAVE JERICHO" on it. If you ever want to see what 4000 lbs of peanuts look like...it's a lot, trust me. The word must have spread quickly because there were a BUNCH of Nielsen employees peeking through the sun screens to look out over the loading bay. I have videos of that and the America's Second Harvest truck arriving. I didn't see any tv cameras, but I did see newspaper photographers, but then, I escaped before the security people came out to the parking lot, lol."


Get your nuts here. There's still time.
The Nuts are coming to Oldsmar.



"On Eve Of TV Upfront, Nielsen Ratings Remain Unaccredited"

"That for the second year in a row, those billions of dollars in upfront advertising buys will be negotiated, bought and sold on the basis of somewhat shaky, and still unaccredited Nielsen TV ratings.

In the weeks leading up to this prelude to the upfront advertising marketplace, the Media Rating Council quietly met, reviewed a crucial audit of Nielsen's so-called C3 ratings system, and opted to withhold accreditation for what will be the currency for billions of dollars in TV advertising buys."


"When asked about why his network is doing so poorly in the ratings, president and chief executive officer of NBC Universal, Jeff Zucker told Television Week, "It's not just about the ratings anymore."

Just to be fair, Zucker explains that the ratings don't matter because the network is fulfilling the expectations of the advertisers. "We're in an era where - we've made a commitment to our advertisers to a schedule. Advertisers have an expectation. It's not just about the ratings anymore. It's about our relationship with our advertisers and what their expectations are."

Nuts, Nuts, and More Nuts

Special Note:

JerichoMonster will now be known as TheMonster. It no longer seems appropriate to use Jericho in the title as this blog is no longer only Jericho posts. Many people were confused by the old title and assumed only Jericho is covered here and TheMonster will cover a wide range of TV topics which include Jericho. The header will change tomorrow.


"Jericho’s Nutty Fans Protest Nielsen’s Ratings System"

Fantastic article with lots of links and lots about Nielsen flaws.


Hats off to NorsU.

Get your nuts here.

"For most people, it's just a bummer when a TV company cancels their favorite show. But fans of the now defunct CBS show "Jericho" are taking the loss of their show a bit harder.

They're fighting back, and the fight is coming to, of all unlikely places, Oldsmar.

"Jericho" devotees plan to picket the local office of TV ratings company Nielsen at noon Tuesday, and dump 4,000 pounds of peanuts on the company's property. Why Nielsen? "Jericho" fans say Nielsen uses faulty methods to measure TV ratings, and those ratings numbers doomed their beloved show.

"It's an antiquated rating system that does not count 99.999 percent of actual TV viewers," said Jonathan Whitesell, a "Jericho" fan and organizer of the protest, referring to the sampling method Nielsen uses to calculate total viewing of a show."

Where Are The Ratings?

Dumbest comment I've seen lately:

""Gossip Girl" is CW's best chance, media buyers and network executives agree. "We know that it's a pop-culture phenomenon," Mr. Haskins said. "It's really kind of hard to understand why everybody knows about it but it's not reflected in the ratings."

Duh. It's not reflected in the ratings because of Nielsen ratings. We Jericho fans well know that Nielsen only reflects a small number of the total watching. Millions of people are not counted.



"He attributes that to "fewer quality new shows" and "the increasing obsolescence of the ratings system. People are still watching TV, they're just not watching it in the same way or in a way that can be measured by the ACNielsen company."

"The strike accelerated a fact of reality, that people are just choosing to watch shows when they feel like it," said Maureen Ryan, The Chicago Tribune’s TV critic. "People are really falling out of the habit of watching something on a weekly basis."



"I was really bummed (though not at all surprised) when I read late last night that ABC was canceling the delightful Men in Trees.

Series creator Jenny Bicks told TVGuide.com’s Michael Ausiello that ABC let the ax fall last week.

Bicks believes, and just about everyone else on this planet agrees (myself included) that ABC is entirely at fault for MIT’s death."


"TNS rejected a $1.87 billion offer from global ad conglomerate WPP over the weekend, setting up what looks like a bidding war for the London-based research firm. The WSJ reported that TNS is in talks with German research firm GfK; Mediapost is convinced The Nielsen Company will make a run at the firm.

TNS is relatively small in the U.S. but has big ambitions. It's making a run at Nielsen's TV ratings monopoly and has recently gained traction. TNS signed a deal with DirecTV (DTV) to cull data from 100,000 TV set-top boxes, and media agencies like Starcom MediaVest are already using the data to measure niche cable channels."

Nutting Nielsen

Let me begin by thanking everyone for all the supportive emails.

Secondly, I seem to have confused some people by what my comment about leaving the fandom meant. Originally, I meant I would discontinue blogging about Jericho and that is partially true.

The main thing I meant is that I will no longer be affiliated with any particular group or message board or forum. I am going it alone. I will continue to post about Nuts To Nielsen but that is the only Jericho campaign I will blog. JM will continue to follow Nielsen ratings and will now be doing extensive coverage of Supernatural on CW.
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Thanks NorsU.

"This is the Florida Vendor - hold off to Monday after 10:00 AM - They are setting up website to reflect better shipping terms - We then have a week to fill nut orders."


For West Coast Nuts- go here.


"The "Jericho" fandom may be an irritant to CBS Par execs, but at a time when even TV's top shows are taking double-digit ratings hits, it's heartening to see that TV, even canceled TV, can still stir up such passion in viewers who adopt shows as their own."

Nielsen In The News

"Oldsmar allows Nielsen to be lazy

How sad it is that the City Council in Oldsmar is so wishy washy with the Nielsen Co. (one or two did stand up, one being council member Janice Miller) and didn't stand up against what Nielsen is doing to its employees and stealing our tax money. (They took tax money on the promise of more jobs.)

Heaven knows the local Chamber of Commerce (I refer to it as the Chamber of Horrors) will not speak against Nielsen's bad choice of replacing its employees with people from another country. I think it's appalling that this company's only choice for increasing its profits is to bring in cheap alien workers."
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Stories of fired Nielsen employees:

"The day she was let go, Elliott said she asked new call center director Steve Houghton, "Do you mean to tell me, after 26 years, you don't have anything for me?"

He shook his head, Elliott said, and said, "No."

She was quickly ushered out a side door and not allowed to pick up personal belongings or say goodbye to co-workers.

Houghton started working for Nielsen on Feb. 4, according to the company. The firings started soon after.

Rose Schulz, 79, of Clearwater said after 16 years, it took about two minutes to be fired and ushered out the door.

"I'll need to work, will you give me a reference?" she said she asked Houghton.

"Number of years worked and your position," she remembers him saying. "That's standard."

Schulz doubts that years of service, attendance or work ethic were considered in letting people go.

"I think they've ruined a lot of people's lives without a thought," she said."

Online: Network Ad Rates

"Networks now charge more per thousand viewers online than they do over the airwaves, where the average for a primetime show is about $25. Analysts put the online rate anywhere from $35 to $50 per thousand, though there are millions more potential traditional TV viewers.

Advertisers pay more online because there is a better accounting of how many viewers see the ads and an extra benefit that an impulse to purchase can be acted on with the click of a mouse."
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"In my opinion we should drop the currency debate. The currency is the almighty US dollar, not Nielsen's panel-based ratings. We should embrace new metrics that shed light on some of the more pressing issues in advertising. Imagine being able to compare which news networks have the most loyal viewers as ranked by appointment viewing. Would anyone be interested in knowing what the audience turnover for a typical weeknight is on MTV and how it might compare to Comedy Central or G4? Is one network a reach vehicle and another better suited for building brand awareness? With new metrics, all these insights are possible."

Not Valuable Nielsen Ratings

" Unfortunately, when an advertiser looks at Nielsen numbers, they have to make assumptions. For instance, when they look at the demographic of 18-35 year olds, they can't tell how many are college students or high-school dropouts. They can't tell how many are lawyers and how many are dishwashers. This is a very serious flaw in the system that keeps Nielsen ratings form being overly valuable.

Many Americans, currently led by the aforementioned fans of the show Jericho, are campaigning to stop the use of Nielsen as a means of deciding whether or not a show should be canceled. The problem is that everyone is complaining about the problem, but no one is offering a solution. However, Jericho's faithful have already proven one time that Nielsen does not always show the value of an audience, and it looks like they're about to do it again."
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For all Skeet Ulrich lovers.

Nuts: Phase III

Nuts To Nielsen

Phase III

NorsU says, "Phase 3 is in early stages but will be an effort to get this message to other fandoms and continue to expose Nielsen for what it is, a fraud."

If interested you may leave a comment or email me at sweat1951@rock.com and I will pass the information to NorsU.
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In the US, TV network AMC has partnered with Nielsen to develop a new Audience Identity Metric (AIM) that segments the audience by behavior, as well as a new ‘Ad Vantage’ metric for advertisers to measure ad receptivity across the industry.

AIM examines distinct differences in consumer preferences and behaviors to identify and target those viewers most likely to watch and to be engaged by a particular mix of AMC film titles and originals. The system matches the audience of specific movie titles with the lifestyles and behavior patterns that are the basis of specific advertiser's TV planning specs; then this data is matched to Nielsen audience estimates.

Holly Leff Pressman, EVP and General Manager of Nielsen Entertainment explained that the metric has been designed to provide more value to advertisers as they target specific audiences beyond age and gender demographics.

"

Nuts To Nielsen: Phase II

Thanks to NorsU for this information:

"Phase 2

I think we have generated enough Media buzz and interest in shelling Nielsen headquarters. I think we can start the next phase of the campaign. By changing how we are counted. I have contacted and communicated with ErinMedia’s CEO Frank Maggio one of the biggest players in the TV ratings biz. His advice was to move focus more onto major Cable companies. We should contact them and express unhappiness with current Nielsen rating system and that the cable companies give ErinAccess, TNS access to viewer data so they can count ALL actual viewers. No games – democracy- real time and actual views/votes. There are approximately 30 MILLION Cable viewers that could all be counted with modern technology. Yet antiquated Nielsen system still rules the ratings and TV Advertising currency.


Phase 3 which will roll out rather fast is getting this information to other fandoms. I think we can find a lot of other show fans upset with Nielsen. And educate them and see the info – and get this some legs. Those that are hardcore nutters - feel free to shell the cable companies but best to focus on contacting them!

Draft protest message – feel free to modify & personalize! Try & work Nuts to Nielsen in

I am tired of Nielsen deciding who is watching what show when they do not count 99.999% of viewers. I request that cable operators share their data with companies like erinMedia and TNS. I want to be counted, and would prefer playing an active part in determining the success or failure of TV programs. Nuts to Nielsen – lets start tracking all TV viewers democratically! Nuts to Nielsen! Jericho TV viewer who demands to be counted!"


Go here for more info.
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"Don Ohlmeyer, the president of NBC's West Coast division, is blunt in his criticism. ''I don't trust their numbers at all,'' he said in a recent interview. ''They're trying to measure 21st-century technology with an abacus.''

Despite the recent downturn in viewership, as measured by Nielsen, the number of homes with televisions has consistently grown and is now at 97 million.

The release of the data from the crucial Feburary sweeps period has intensified the old debate over Nielsen's monopoly role as the company that counts which shows have captured which viewers. Once the Bible of television ratings, Nielsen has enraged its best customers. Most angry are the broadcast networks, who blame flaws and inconsistencies in Nielsen's system for the loss of tens of millions of dollars.

Giving new weight to their concerns, three networks have banded together for the first time to help finance an experimental ratings system that they hope will either become a full-fledged competitor to Nielsen by the end of the century, or at least force the rating company to change its methodology and answer their main complaints."

Hypocritical CBS

So CBS cancels Jericho because of low Nielsen numbers. They brag about the online views Jericho got but didn't seem to count them. Now, CBS runs around bragging about their online numbers for basketball.

"Even before the NCAA Tournament, CBS had begun making arguments that ratings needed updating to reflect online viewing as well as TV."

Hypocrites. This was just another way to prevent us from getting Season 3. Poor Moonves. Bet his ego was bruised by nuts.



Nielsen has settled with ErinMedia. You may recall ErinMedia tried to grab onto measuring TV audiences much like Nielsen does. Isn't Nielsen a monopoly?



AdAge has an interesting article today about consumers and interactive media. They mention Nielsen and some of their competition.


"Already Starcom USA has said it will negotiate only with unrated digital cable channels that can offer some level of "quantitative metrics," which could include set-top-box data. TNS has unveiled a new service, known as TNS DirecTView, that studies 100,000 DirecTV subscribers and their granular viewing habits. Not to be outdone, Nielsen has said it intends to provide clients with set-top-box data by the second quarter of 2008. TiVo is also making set-top-box data available.

As viewership data becomes more finely calibrated, other measures will attempt to move things beyond reach and exposure. Thanks to more consumers using interactive media such as cellphones and computers -- and with interactive TV seen as more of a reality -- advertisers will want to measure whether consumers respond to programs and promotions, said Paul Donato, Nielsen's chief research officer."


Nuts To Nielsen:

Send Nuts here:

Shipping to:
The Nielsen Company
770 Broadway
New York, NY 10003-9595
United States
phone: +1 646 654 5000

IR Contact
David Berger: +1 646 654 5057
david.berger@nielsen.com


Tell them:

HEY NIELSEN, COUNT THIS!

Jericho II

I recently posted about a report which stated that Nielsen had, once again, made a big error in their reporting.

According to MediaPost, "Nielsen also says it can’t keep up with the many new networks on satellite distributors: “Given the rapid growth and the increase in the number of packages and channels available, this process no longer provides the necessary level of reliability to accurately define household channel receivability.”

What? Nielsen admits they can't keep up? Is this supposed to make us trust them? How can they count Internet viewers when they can't even do it right for TV?

Read the entire article here.
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I look back at all the things, besides send nuts, during our first campaign and I find it amazing that some think fans can't do more than one thing at a time. Nobody said Nuts To Nielsen would save Jericho; it's just part of the big picture.

And, remember, the Nuts To Nielsen campaign may include everyone. It's not just for Jericho fans. Your show could be canceled next.

Send them here:

Shipping to:
The Nielsen Company
770 Broadway
New York, NY 10003-9595
United States
phone: +1 646 654 5000

IR Contact
David Berger: +1 646 654 5057
david.berger@nielsen.com


Tell them:

HEY NIELSEN, COUNT THIS!