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Lawmakers tread lightly on LPM controversy

After hearing more than two hours of testimony on whether or not Nielsen's Local People Meters (LPM) undercount minority viewers, members of the Senate Communications Subcommittee made it clear they want the ratings company and its critics to resolve the issue without the government having to get involved. "I feel very reluctant to throw big brother into the mix," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), although she said Congress will continue to watch the LPM issue. "I doubt that it requires legislation," agreed Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), who chaired the hearing.

But while the lawmakers aren't leaning toward government regulation of TV ratings, that doesn't mean that Nielsen Media Research President and CEO Susan Whiting wasn't on the hot seat. She faced a barrage of questions about why LPM results for some dayparts and demos, particularly blacks and Hispanics, in New York and Los Angeles have often been quite different from results using the older meter/diary method. Whiting insisted that some disparity is to be expected, but she said LPM is clearly a move forward. And Whiting said Nielsen had nothing to gain from undercounting any group of viewers, but rather that it could best serve its clients by being as accurate as possible. While she avoided mentioning News Corporation by name - - although her written testimony accused the company of funding an anti-LPM ad and PR campaign by the Don't Count Us Out coalition - - Whiting charged that certain broadcasters who stand to lose ad sales dollars under LPM are trying to undermine and block LPM. Asked about rating disparities for certain months in New York, Whiting implied that the coalition's anti-LPM effort had played a role in curbing minority participation, but that increased efforts by Nielsen have improved minority representation in its LPM ratings.

While they raised lots of questions about the accuracy of Nielsen's LPM methodology, it didn't appear that Univision Television President Tom Arnost and Fox Television Stations President of Station Operations Tom Herwitz made much headway in persuading Members of Congress that the government should oversee Nielsen, which Herwitz denounced at one point as a foreign-owned monopoly. He charged that some minority groups were being undercounted by 30% in LA and that broadcasters were helpless to make Nielsen fix the situation.

Although Nielsen has agreed to run LPM in tandem with its traditional meter/diary far longer than it had planned in New York and LA - - and after rollouts later this year in Chicago and San Francisco - - Whiting didn't relent on using LPM for real world ratings, even while working on problems which have prevented accreditation by the Media Ratings Council. Appearing as one of the neutrals on the highly-charged panel of witnesses, MRC Executive Director and CEO George Ivie said he would prefer that Nielsen keep its meter/diary systems in place and run LPM in test mode for extended periods until each local market wins MRC accreditation.

The other neutral, Bob Barocci, President and CEO of the Advertising Research Foundation, was so neutral that Boxer came back near the end of the hearing to ask just where he stood. Barocci said his group wanted to see ad dollars taken out of the equation so the focus would properly be on having Nielsen produce the most accurate ratings possible.

RBR observation:

Whether he intended to or not, Fox's Tom Herwitz gave a boost to Arbitron's Portable People Meter (PPM) with his repeated attacks on Nielsen's "button-pushing" meters. Sen. Boxer wanted to know whether passive technology for TV ratings was available, and if so why Nielsen wasn't using it. Nielsen CEO Susan Whiting assured the senator that her company was already spending lots of money on PPM field trials in conjunction with Arbitron. We would note that members of Congress are likely unaware of the current anti-PPM backlash in radio, so jumping past LPM to rapidly implement PPM might be little more than substituting one ratings war for another.