RBR observation:
Washington should stay out of broadcast ratings
We can't imagine why Rupert Murdoch thinks he, or any other broadcaster, would be better off by having the federal government regulate broadcast ratings. For that matter, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) is a former broadcaster, so you'd think he would have more sense. But no, they are the two people pushing the hardest to inject the Washington bureaucracy into broadcast ratings - - and Nielsen's Local People Meters (LPMs), in particular. They are horribly wrong and must be stopped.
If you've ever had any dealings with the Federal Communications Commission (and most of our readers have), you know what it is like to deal with Washington bureaucrats. In recent years we've witnessed the long, drawn out and convoluted effort to rewrite the FCC's ownership rules for radio, TV and other media - - a process that has been to court once and is now back at the FCC, with no end in sight. Would you want to see a similar process anytime Nielsen or Arbitron came up with a proposed new technology, tech upgrade or methodology enhancement? Would you want to wait years while the Federal Bureau of Broadcast Ratings weighed whether or not to allow Arbitron to add cell phone-only households to its audience sample? Or for Nielsen to be allowed to add Active/Passive technology to its meters to deal with time-shifted viewing from DVRs?
And then there's the cost. If you think having the feds involved will be cheap, we've got some oceanfront property you might want to buy - - sight unseen - - in Kansas. One need only to look at the Sarbanes-Oxley law on financial reporting by public companies to see how well-intentioned legislation can have the unintended consequence of forcing businesses to make huge expenditures with no return for their shareholders or the public. Sarbanes-Oxley is so costly that many smaller companies are trying to figure out how to go private because the compliance costs have taken them from net earnings to net losses. Federal regulation of broadcast ratings would add costs that would be felt most by small broadcasters - - probably forcing even more of them to decide that they will have to get by without Arbitron or Nielsen.
If Murdoch thinks LPMs undercount his stations' audiences, he should do what others who have the same complaint are doing - - work with Nielsen to identify the problems and fix them. Since the US government has no experience whatsoever in broadcast ratings, it's unlikely that any federal bureaucrat is going to wave a magic wand that will suddenly resolve all of the problems that anyone has with how their station does in the LPM ratings. More likely, they will just add more complications and make more station owners even more dissatisfied. Be careful what you ask for, Rupert.
As we noted when this bad idea first surfaced last year (5/14/04 RBR #95) Nielsen/Arbitron ratings are not federal elections and they do not carry any government sanction. The government should not be auditing Nielsen, Arbitron, Gallup, Harris or anyone else who surveys the American public for any reason.
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras had it right when she told Members of Congress that her agency had no authority to oversee how Nielsen conducts its TV ratings. We think it should stay that way. If you missed it, here is her letter. | Read the entire letter here. |
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