A single house within the rural southeastern U.S. stands on the heart of a rising rift between Nielsen and the Spanish-language broadcasting big whose audiences it measures.
Executives at TelevisaUnivision are furious a few quirk in Nielsen’s means of tabulating the audiences for Spanish-language TV that they are saying is giving rival Telemundo a major increase in estimates of younger male viewers tuning into information reveals and different programming,
However the lifts, these folks say, are primarily based on Nielsen’s reliance on one family the place 5 Spanish-speaking residents don’t have any entry to TelevisaUnivision’s stations, simply Telemundo’s. And Nielsen’s extrapolation of that house’s exercise has created inaccurate viewers estimates that TelevisaUnivision believes may harm its prospects heading into the “upfront” market, when U.S. media firms attempt to promote the majority of their industrial stock forward of their subsequent cycle of programming.
“For them to not act on the anomaly proper now of this information is unacceptable,” says Donna Speciale, president of U.S. promoting gross sales and advertising and marketing at TelevisaUnivision, throughout an interview. She provides: “They don’t seem to be appearing shortly and that has big ramifications for our enterprise.”
“We’re conscious of the shopper’s suggestions and we’re in direct, steady communication with them,” Nielsen stated in a press release. “Nielsen stands by its panel and methodology. We additionally take suggestions very critically. We’re dedicated to persevering with to analysis the state of affairs.”
Spanish-language TV is among the hotter elements of the media market, at the same time as extra viewers total go away conventional TV in favor of streaming. The Spanish-speaking inhabitants of the U.S. has been rising, and viewers of Univision within the U.S. and Telemundo are considered as vital constituents whose wants and pursuits can affect the outcome of political campaigns. Over the previous few years, Speciale has labored to gain new ad commitments from Madison Avenue, significantly marketers that have not spent heavily on Spanish media.
The schism takes place simply as Nielsen is hoping to show its reliability after a troublesome interval. The measurement big final week gained accreditation from the Media Ranking Council, an trade monitor, for a new “Panel + Big Data” offering that may incorporate viewers interactions with cable and satellite tv for pc set-top bins and good TVs throughout 45 million households and 75 million gadgets. Nielsen is backing the brand new product as the idea for “forex” for negotiations between media shops and advertisers. It has additionally gained accreditation to use first-party data from various media outlets in calculating its scores.
Even so, executives at many media companies remain wary of Nielsen. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, complaints about Nielsen undercounting audiences spurred a loss of accreditation for its national ratings service for months; it has since been regained. Paramount World, for instance, declined last year to renew its contract with the measurement company, citing prices and the availability of other measurement vendors that have been capable of wrap science across the problem of counting viewers which have migrated to streaming venues. Paramount has been counting on VideoAmp, a Nielsen rival, and plenty of of its contemporaries have struck pacts with that firm as effectively.
The fracas between TelevisaUnivsion and Nielsen is shocking, as a result of Speciale has previously backed Nielsen’s efforts to include the brand new information and add it to its panel. “I’m the one which’s been screaming to the highest” about adopting the know-how, the manager says.
TelevisaUnivision began noticing discrepancies in scores simply after the beginning of the 12 months, noting surges in Telemundo’s younger male audiences, significantly for information programming. When executives requested for extra particulars, they discovered the reason for the scores hike was a single house within the southeastern U.S., the place residents of a rural house solely have entry to over-the-air TV.
When TelevisaUnivsion probed extra deeply, executives gained assurances that Nielsen would take away the house from the panel in order that the discrepancies may very well be studied. After one weekend, the impact the house was having on scores was clear, as a result of TelevisaUnivision’s protection of the presidential inauguration fared higher in scores. Then Nielsen knowledgeable TelevisaUnivision it could be placing the house again into its viewers panel.
“We introduced this anomaly of information to their consideration in personal. We didn’t need to elevate this in any respect. We did it in personal, tried to get them to dig into this. They agreed that one thing’s unsuitable. They agreed to take it down, then put it again up,” says Speciale. “My problem is absolutely the timing, as a result of they’re not saying they’re not altering it, however they’re saying they want time. And I’m sorry, we don’t have time.”
Telemundo, which is a part of NBCUniversal, declined to remark.
