Memo to Senate: Stay out of my bedroom, stay out of my business

The New Hampshire state motto is “Live Free or Die” and we’ve always been a bit more independent up here than other states. Not that we’re all libertarians mind you, we just don’t think that the government should play that big a role in our lives.

So it was particularly annoying to read that a group of Republican legislators was pushing a bill that would essentially make media research a regulated industry.  The bill is being pushed by Fox lobbyists. Fox has of course had a tendency to be more favorable to republicans and the republican agenda. So it should come as no surprise that the republicans are returning the favor by pushing this bill.

The bill would require Nielsen ratings to check with an industry group before it made any changes in its technology or methodology. Now granted, Nielsen has had an abnormally strong influence over media since its founding but that’s nothing that a free market can’t fix. And in fact, Nielsen’s influence is already waning. … http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archive/index.php/t-512266.html

The bigger questions is, what are the long term implications of  a congressionally controlled “industry advisory board” reviewing media research. Will there come a day when if Lockheed or Exxon doesn’t like the research report that we or Cymfony or Biz 360 or Echo or NOP or anyone else provides, will congress come in and investigate our methodology.

Let's get this nonsense stopped now. Contact your local senator and/or the bills sponsors: Montana Senator Conrad Burns, Maine Senator Olympia Snow, Florida Senator Mel Martinez and/or Virginia Senator George Allen. 

Comments

[Ed O'Meara]

My read of this issue is that Nielsen ratings significantly influence the MARKET prices for ad rates. The current ratings system, confirmed by Nielsen's own research, is not always reflective of the audience advertisers are paying to reach.

From MediaWeek, "Several Nielsen clients, including Tribune, Allbritton Communications, and Fox Television, concerned with the high fault rates among African Americans, Hispanics and large households, have asked Nielsen to delay the launch of the LPM service..."

Broadcast Clients, Advertisers, Government, and Lobbyists (and, yes, political parties) are agruing that Nielsen could and should have auditing in place before launching new products that will drive market pricing (read demographic market pricing) so that accurate, audited information affects the prices that get set.

Advertisers, including Senatorial re-election campaigns, care deeply about such things.

The MRC was launched in 1964, at Congress' request, to encourage the industry to self regulate accuracy/pricing issues - and Nielsen has been the #1 participant (they are the market, after all), according to the MRC website. Whether the MRC is an effective organization or not is a different question, left to Nielsen and the other members to resolve.

So the question might be, why is Niesen not self-regulating as it has for the past decades?

Perhaps it is because new ideas and metrics from erinMedia, and cable operators, and DVR companies are coming to market too quickly - challenging their monopoly. Nielsen is intent to launch in key markets without the self-regulation they helped define in the hopes of holding their grip on large client contracts and demonstrating they're responsive to client improvement requests.

BTW, erinMedia is based in Florida, with media partners including Tribune, Cablevision, FOX, etc. I'm sure a bit of investigative reporting may uncover that the Senators backing this bill have more connections to erinMedia and their broadcast partners than they do to endorsing the FOX political point of view.

Me? I hate monopolistic behavior, when I'm the small guy. But I believe that Nielsen has every right to pre-emptively bring their product to market. If it sucks, advertisers have every right to sue them, or buy from someone else.

God Bless America.