Some 2.2 million Asian Americans reside in the San Francisco Bay Area. A broadcast TV station led by GM Jack Schwartz has responded by offering news and information, along with entertainment programming, in over seven Asian languages on a station owned by Lincoln Howell.
Howell’s over-the-air channel offers Mandarin-language programming, and offers Ravi Kapur‘s Diya TV on its DT2 signal.
Now, Howell and Schwartz are committing to “a comprehensive suite of measurement services” enabling Lincoln Broadcasting Co. to better compete against all broadcast channels in one of the nation’s biggest markets.
Nielsen will now offer local TV measurement, NLTV, and Nielsen Scarborough to Lincoln-owned KTSF-26.
In prepared comments, Schwartz said Lincoln was “proud to continue building on our legacy as the pioneer TV station in Northern California serving the Asian Community,” adding that KTSF is “committed to continuing to provide programming and advertising that is most relevant to our audiences and advertisers. Nielsen’s sophisticated data and insights, and Asian household measurement will help us accelerate this imperative.”
While the Mandarin dialect dominates across the U.S., KTSF also offers a live nightly news broadcast in Cantonese — and is the only station in the U.S. to do so.
And, in speaking with Nielsen, Schwartz and Howell each believed the Scarborough data illustrates Nielsen’s understanding of the different media and consumer behaviors within the highly broad Asian segment. Depending on the market, this can include Indian/Pakistani/Sri Lankan viewers of “Bollywood”-style programming and cricket; Vietnamese, Hmong, Japanese, and Korean programming.
Nielsen Local EVP/Managing Director Catherine Herkovic calls KTSF “a leader in providing diversity and quality in Asian programming.”
Discussing its offerings, Herkovic continued, “Nielsen is committed to measuring the total audience and ensuring full viewer representation. As the only company that can offer true persons level measurement capturing diverse audiences, Nielsen is proud to team up with clients that serve these populations.”
The new agreement is not the first to involve Nielsen and KTSF. In June 2014, the station launched its local TV App in the Apple App Store and fully implemented Nielsen mobile measurement software in order to inform its research and insights and drive ad effectiveness.
— Ethan Hunt, RBR+TVBR West Coast Bureau, in Eureka, Calif.
