Nielsen Adds Spanish To TV Ratings Babel Stream

“AMID GROWING FEARS THAT THE imminent release of multiple, conflicting streams of national TV ratings data will throw the TV business into babel, Nielsen Monday announced plans to add another language into the mix: Spanish. Effective next week, Nielsen will begin reporting two sets of national TV ratings data for Spanish-language programming giant Univision: One set produced from Nielsen’s general market sample, known as NTI (National Television Index); the other from a special Hispanic household sample known as NHTI (National Hispanic Television Index) that Nielsen created years ago to represent Hispanic households. While the decision is a positive sign for Univision–and for Nielsen’s efforts to improve the representation of Hispanics in its general market sample–the timing of the decision and the concurrent nature of two data streams for Univision couldn’t be worse, coming as Nielsen also is introducing three new “official” sets of data for all TV networks and stations, as well as a unique set of data for the press that cover the television business. The timing also is poor because it coincides with the worst possible season–the holidays–when Nielsen’s sample, data gathering, and reporting systems are under their greatest strain. Last week, Nielsen unveiled a “recovery plan” to deal with the dislocation over the next few weeks that reads more like a battle plan than a research system (MDN Dec. 19), and noted that it also will face new challenges from households introducing record new numbers of TV-related consumer electronics products during the holiday season….”

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