Local TV Audience

The debate surrounding television audience research at the local level was again center stage in 2005. At the heart of matters is Nielsen Media Research’s Local People Meters (LPMs).11

How Nielsen Media Measures Viewers in the 210 U.S. Television Markets

Source: Nielsen Media Research, 2005

As predicted, after some initial protest most station groups have signed contracts with Nielsen Media for audience data based on LPMs. That includes the Spanish-language group Univision, which had resisted the change from diaries because of concerns that Hispanics might be undercounted.

LPMs were rolled out by 2005 in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. Detroit & Dallas-Fort Worth got meters in January 2006 and Atlanta is scheduled to get the LPMs by July 2006. Those are the top 10 television markets in the U.S.12 The larger Nielsen Media local TV universe is made up of 210 local markets, which are still measured in the more traditional method of either electronic meters (“combined markets”) and/or handwritten diaries (“diary markets”).

Several of the largest TV groups, however, are still fighting the LPM method because of concerns over the accuracy of the devices and the representativeness of the demographic samples. Groups such as Fox Television (News Corp.), Tribune Broadcasting, Gannett Broadcasting and Allbritton Communications have publicly opposed the meters. After Nielsen Media began introducing the meters, the audience of many of those big broadcasters, including News Corp.’s Fox stations, as measured by LPMs was much less than the audience previously found by other means.

As a part of the battle, a group of broadcasters were able to get a bill introduced in the Senatein July 2005 that would require Nielsen Media Research to have all its new measuring devices certified by the Media Ratings Council Inc. (MRC), a consortium of broadcasters, cable operators, advertisers and others. The bill’s opponents, including Nielsen Media Research, said that it would stifle and delay any development of new technologies. Heading into 2006, the bill had gone nowhere.