Buyers See Double Trouble In Nielsen's Two-Book Plan

Nielsen Media Research's decision last week to provide two ratings books through Sept. 2—one set based on its standard meter diaries, the other on its new Local People Meter system—has media buyers confused about how to use each set of numbers."This is worse" than the days when Nielsen and Arbitron each offered their own ratings, said Maribeth Papuga, svp at Publicis Groupe's MediaVest in New York. "The data can be confused and create more anxiety. The longer the options are there, the harder it is to get compliance across all parties."Monica Gadsby, CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group unit Tapestry in Chicago, said advertisers will "force the agencies to take one position." Added Gadsby, whose multicultural agency has $400 million in billings, "I fully expect the networks to play a game and gravitate toward the best numbers ... favoring the book that is best for them."Buyers will gravitate toward the LPMs, predicted Jack Loftus, svp of communications at Nielsen (which, like Adweek, is owned by VNU). But, he noted, "stations like Fox are perfectly capable of going to advertisers and selling what they want."The LPM service, which Nielsen kicked off last Thursday in the New York market, is under attack in a multimillion-dollar TV and print campaign [Adweek Online, June 2] that's backed by Fox and spearheaded by Don't Count Us Out, a coalition of largely Hispanic media interests. Two weeks ago, the Media Rating Council refused to accredit the LPM service, and CBS urged Nielsen to delay its rollout in New York. Some stations refused to air the anti-Nielsen ads, including independent KABC in Los Angeles, all of NBC's owned-and-operated stations and Univision. Ceril Shagrin, svp of corporate research at Univision in New York, said she was "very disturbed" by the ads. "Hispanics don't know who Nielsen is," noted Shagrin, who spent 27 years at Nielsen, helping to develop its Hispanic book. "If the first thing they see is 'Nielsen equals bad,' then it only makes the problem [of getting an accurate Hispanic sample] worse."The two-book solution, Shagrin said, "undermines the currency that we were using. I don't think there will be enough attention on the old sample—it's yesterday's toy." Some agencies pushed for LPMs for years and will use those numbers, she said, putting researchers "between a rock and hard place." The twin systems "will just make it difficult," agreed Sofia Escamilla, media director at Hispanic independent La Agencia de Orci & Asociados in Los Angeles. "We are not going to ignore the LPM, but until it's finalized and confirmed, we're going to use the old book."Escamilla, however, is a fan of the new system. "We're happy that the LPM is coming," she said. "We just want it to be accurate." As for the protests, Loftus noted, "I don't think a general-market sample will ever have enough Spanish-speaking people to suit Univision, but we're trying."

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Buyers See Double Trouble In Nielsen's Two-Book Plan

Katy Bachman

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