We asked Jon Mandel, Chairman/MediaCom US and Chief Global Buying Officer MediaCom Worldwide, if he had anything to say on the whole Nielsen commercial ratings commentary from Mike Shaw at the AAAAs and what Jean Pool said yesterday (3/7/06 TVBR #46)?

At the AAAAs, ABC President of Sales was quoted as saying ABC pays 90% of the cost of the ratings. "If they want to pay 50%, they can have the numbers, too." As well, on making commercial ratings the currency, Shaw commented that networks cancel shows all the time for poor ratings... "Who's going to cancel bad creative? Do I charge more for a commercial in the A position if every time it airs the rating dips?"

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Mandel tells RBR/TVBR: "Mike doesn't know what the...I've got to talk to him. First of all, Mike is wrong on several counts. First of all, they don't pay 90% of the Nielsen costs. Number two, our Nielsen costs are not that different from theirs. Number three, he's in this stupid fight about Nielsen Live/Live Plus Seven. We are jumping ahead of that, saying, 'You know what? We'll pay for whomever sees the commercials.' He's saying it will cost more. They already have the data, they've had the data for more than 20 years. We use it when we're working on network accounts, on programming all the time. If Mike would just talk to his programming people and get the data, it would be fine. To withhold the data says they're hiding something. He has the data. All he has to do is say to Nielsen, 'We allow it to be given out.' And his bit about the creative, you can project the numbers. And it's not so much creative as it is category. I mean movie advertising tends to hold its audience, and by the way, movie companies tend to want the A position. You would want them in the A position because they hold the audience and they pay more to begin with.

So instead of fighting it and watching television go down the drain, why not go with your strength, which is use these numbers that plays to television's strength and kick the crap out of the other media."

We mentioned yesterday that if only one network stepped up and offered commercial ratings data for the upfront, that network would likely be swarmed with buys.

Said Mandel: "I think you will see people using it, because you sort of have to use it. Particularly in this environment. If the numbers didn't exist and we didn't have decades of experience with it, I can understand sticking your head in the sand and saying, 'I don't want to do it, it's going to cost...give me all the reasons why not to instead of why. The point of fact is the numbers exist, it's not going to cost us more and the clients want to know what they're getting. Even if 40% of people didn't watch the commercials, 60% is still better than what happens online. Instead of looking like you're trying to hide something, stop fighting it, use it, and this thing that you're afraid of is actually going to manage to make you more money. It's mind-boggling. There's nothing wrong with ignorance if you're willing to learn."

He adds, "I think you will see that there will be people, primarily in the cable business-and network television could do better than cable-stepping forward. And the same thing holds with radio. It is unconscionable to me in radio that if you're a program director you can get weekly numbers or in PPM you can get daily numbers...and we get quarterly?! They've got the same situation."