MOST BOSTON STATIONS AND MEDIA SERVICES PLEASED WITH PEOPLE METERS
All but one of Boston’s key broadcasters have signed contracts with Nielsen Media Research for expanded TV ratings, lending credibility to the company’s local people meter (LPM) service, which is to expand into 9 other major markets in the next 2 years. Nielsen shut down Boston’s meter diary ratings system in May, replacing them with LPM, which is capable of producing daily demographic information in half-hour blocks, unlike the former system, which provided monthly ratings information during sweeps periods. Boston is the first city to switch to local people meters. Nielsen’s LPM rollout continues early next year in L. A., followed by N.Y., Chicago and San Francisco later in the year, with Philadelphia, Washington, Detroit and Dallas switching in 2005 and Atlanta in 2006.
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Most Boston area stations were reluctant to embrace the new service, citing concerns about methodology and higher costs. They refused to sign new contracts until Nielsen won accreditation from the Media Ratings Council (MRC). The MRC rejected Nielsen’s first request, but it later won approval after tweaking the system. Most stations and cable providers said the cost of their contracts with Nielsen doubled, although none would say specifically by how much. Boston’s 2 Viacom-owned stations, WBZ-TV (Ch. 4, CBS) and WSBK-TV (Ch. 38, UPN), signed on at the end of July, leaving WHDH-TV (Ch. 7, NBC) as the lone key holdout. “The system’s credibility rests on the fact that nearly all the broadcasters and cable networks are participating in Boston,” said Jack Loftus, a spokesman for Nielsen. “We are looking forward to signing up [WHDH-TV]. They're a good client, and we believe there’s a light on in the window.”
The Boston rollout shifted ratings dramatically, confirming what many had thought daily demographics would expose: That broadcasters were losing market share to cable networks, and that viewers channel surfed more frequently than reflected by the old system. “Ratings are much more fragmented across networks,” said Mary Warren, a media buyer for MPG Arnold. “Prior to people meters, you saw much larger shares going to broadcasters. Now we're seeing greater swings, spread out all over, from cable to broadcast. And we're seeing these greater swings in quarter-hour ratings. For example, we're seeing dramatic differences for Red Sox games down to the inning.”
The fragmentation means advertisers must buy more air time to generate the same gross ratings points (GRPs), Warren said. Meanwhile, demand for air time remains high, meaning points are a lot more expensive. Some media buyers speculate that air time costs could come down to reflect the fact that more spots are needed to generate ratings points. “The marketplace will work out adjusted rates and Boston’s spot buys will stabilize over a long shake-out period,” Alan Rovitzky, Mediacom vp-assoc. dir. of strategy, said in a Nielsen news release last Oct. Rovitzky stood by his prediction in a telephone interview last week.
Nielsen expects the L.A. rollout to go smoothly, simply because of experience it gained in Boston and the fact that the ABC, NBC and CBS stations in L.A. are owned by the networks, which already have multiyear contracts for LPM service, Loftus said. Nielsen still is negotiating contracts with Fox, Univision and some independent stations in the area, Loftus said. -- J.L. Laws