Help! Change TV Sets Record Straight on Nielsen’s Hispanic Ratings Move – Nielsen’s Much Touted Move Leaves U.S. Born Latinos Out of the Mix … Again!

“Help! Change TV responded to Nielsen Media Research’s recent announcement that it will produce its Hispanic TV ratings through its National People Meter “general market” panel exclusively while abandoning the National Hispanic People it has used since 1992 to track Hispanic television viewing.

“This move still does not address the Nativity issue (Hispanic sampling represented by census data for U.S. born & non U.S. born) in Nielsen’s methodology which unfortunately remains the biggest obstacle to obtaining more accurate TV ratings for all U.S. Latinos,” stated Robert G. Rose, founder of the initiative Help! Change TV (formerly “Change the Sample”).

“With all the hype over Latinos being compared to ’side by side’ next to the ‘general market,’ the fact remains that TV ratings for U.S. Hispanics will remain inaccurate until Nielsen adjusts their sample based on Nativity, the proven and single most important factor that determines whether Latinos watch TV in Spanish or English,” Rose continues.

Help! Change TV contends that the impact of Nielsen’s erroneous Hispanic ratings on the media and marketing industry is that many advertisers and marketers overspend media budgets on Spanish language television under the assumption they are reaching the majority of U.S. Latinos. In reality these marketers are missing the largest, youngest and fastest growing segment of the U.S. Latino population (U.S. born Latinos), who currently comprise over 65% of all U.S. Latinos and are projected to be over 75% of all U.S. Latinos by 2020 yet rarely if ever watch Spanish language TV.

The impact on viewers’ lives includes an under-representation of Latinos on English-language television resulting in skewed stereotypes that tend to mislead many non-Latinos that Latinos are either recent or “illegal” immigrants who do not speak English and are not a valuable part of mainstream society or are one dimensional stereotypes that have remained prevalent in the media for years (gang-bangers, Latin lovers, drug dealers, prostitutes, maids, gardeners, etc.).

Help! Change TV’s grassroots initiative for change includes www.HelpChangeTV.com where concerned viewers and those in the industry can go for more information and sign the petition for change.
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