As “crises” in media go, this particular one that landed in my inbox overnight isn’t a five-alarmer. Lord knows there are far bigger and far-reaching matters going on these days, But because this particular one that VARIETY’s Brian Steinberg uncovered resonated with me on so many levels, I felt it’s something you needed to know and is perhaps representative of something that has a domino effect on a lot more people and policies than first blush might allow.
Steinberg exclusively dropped this arguably parochial contesting earlier this week:
Executives at TelevisaUnivision are livid about a quirk in Nielsen’s process of tabulating the audiences for Spanish-language TV that they say is giving rival Telemundo a significant boost in estimates of young male viewers tuning into news shows and other programming. A single home in the rural southeastern U.S. stands at the center of a growing rift between Nielsen and the Spanish-language broadcasting giant whose audiences it measures…(T)he lifts, these people say, are based on Nielsen’s reliance on one household where five Spanish-speaking residents have no access to TelevisaUnivision’s stations, just Telemundo’s. And Nielsen’s extrapolation of that home’s activity has created inaccurate audience estimates that TelevisaUnivision believes could hurt its prospects heading into the “upfront” market, when U.S. media companies try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory ahead of their next cycle of programming.
The source of these allegations is one Donna Speciale, currently the longtime Spanish language legacy media champion’s head of U.S. Advertising Sales and Marketing. But since I’ve known Donna over the length of her storied career where she eventually rose to the top sales position at WarnerMedia after a lengthy stint on the buying side as an executive at MediaCom, at both stops being one of the nost outspoken and detail-oriented voices willing to go on the record to discuss the concerns and implications of accurate measurement, I take her findings with a lot more grains of salt than perhaps some less experienced and careful observers might. On top of all of that, she happens to be married to one of the more aggressive and entrepreneurial research vendors I’ve dealt with over the years. So she’s a rare amalgamation of pit bull, numbers “nerd” and detective–pretty much the qualities I pride myself on having. And the kind of triple threat that vendors often more focused on deals that impact their sales goals and their stockholders’ expectations dislike even more these days then was I was more involved.
“For them to not act on the anomaly right now of this data is unacceptable,” says Speciale (.) They are not acting quickly and that has huge ramifications for our business.” “We are aware of the client’s feedback and we are in direct, continuous communication with them,” Nielsen said in a statement. “Nielsen stands by its panel and methodology. We also take feedback very seriously. We are committed to continuing to research the situation.”
My burning question to Nielsen would be: Why and what else do you need to do or are capable of doing that your client hasn’t already done for you?
Forgive the potential redundancy to this anecdote, but when I headed research for FOX Family Worldwide I learned first-hand the implications of how significant relatively minor discrepencies in samples can impact businesses. By the time I was involved FOX KIDS’ broadcast schedule had pivoted to a focus on boys 6-11, essentially one quadrant of an already defined demographic niche. Ratings had splintered to the point where at the thresholds we were delivering the differences between success and failure would project to the behavior patterns of one or two households with children in that demographic. We’d sometimes see shifts of as many as 10-20 share points on a week-to-week basis, drawing the mercurial ire of our demanding boss Haim Saban. When we dug into the miniutiae in a manner akin to how Speciale and team have done, I could only offer to Saban the real world and common sense observation that it was likely that the two kids that may have caused that decline were likely not watching on weekday afternoons because they were in detention or time out.
We brought those concerns to Nielsen, and they privately confirmed we were right. It’s important to remember that from their side putting together a representative panel is much like a massive game of Jenga. The highest-level priority for selection in a national sample is where a household fits in geographic representation of the population as a whole, with best efforts being made to make sure that home is also not statistically aberrant enough on other qualifiers such as household composition and playing field leveling to matter. In our situation, we were being impacted negatively, but our competitors weren’t necessarily benefitting directly. In the case that Speciale’s team has uncovered, they absolutely are.
And as Steinberg further noted, the implications of a competitor being able to glean enough of an advantage because of the unique characteristics of that household have perhaps greater global significance that just this one finding reveals:
Spanish-language TV is one of the hotter parts of the media market, even as more viewers overall leave traditional TV in favor of streaming. The Spanish-speaking population of the U.S. has been growing, and viewers of Univision in the U.S. and Telemundo are viewed as important constituents whose needs and interests can affect the outcome of political campaigns. Over the past few years, Speciale has worked to gain new ad commitments from Madison Avenue, particularly marketers that have not spent heavily on Spanish media.
It’s the reaction–or, to be more specific–the underreaction that Speciale shared that is perhaps the most concerning IMO:
When TelevisaUnivision probed more deeply, executives gained assurances that Nielsen would remove the home from the panel so that the discrepancies could be studied. After one weekend, the effect the home was having on ratings was clear, because TelevisaUnivision’s coverage of the presidential inauguration fared better in ratings. Then Nielsen informed TelevisaUnivision it would be putting the home back into its audience panel.
“We brought this anomaly of data to their attention in private. We did not want to raise this at all. We did it in private, tried to get them to dig into this. They agreed that something’s wrong. They agreed to take it down, then put it back up,” says Speciale. “My issue is really the timing, because they’re not saying they’re not changing it, but they’re saying they need time. And I’m sorry, we don’t have time.”
Telemundo, of course, is part of a far larger and financially more lucrative client deal to Nielsen as one of the few growth areas in NBCUniversal’s portfolio. Comcast as a whole contributes millions more to Nielsen’s troubled bottom line with its commitments from the cable networks now technically part of SpinCo as well as its cable systems. Under its current ownership, large as TelevisaUnivision is, a large part of its global business falls outside Nielsen’s direct purview. But how well Speciale can deliver on her expectations impacts a whole lot of folks at her company who are already under the microscope as their legacy market share has declined over time. And as we all know, media jobs these days aren’t exactly plentiful.
Frankly, in the big picture, whether or not a household in a particularly non-Latino area of the country with disproportionately limited choices is included or not shouldn’t matter to most of the companies that are catering to that audience. It’s not like their ROI is being adversely impacted. It would be relatively easy for Nielsen to find another home that fits the puzzle a bit more representaively than the one they seem to be loathe to part with.
Again, WHY?
It wouldn’t have anything to do with perhaps the not-so-subtle pressure that a much bigger client might be applying–or even the challenged Nielsen executives’ perception that such pressure could impact crucial upcoming negotations, now would it?
And if that’s merely a conspiracy theory, why isn’t Telemundo willing to speak on the record about it? And why is what Nielsen is offering on the record so waffling in tone? Isn’t the recent announcement they are finally entering the 21st century of measurement that we mused about mere days ago going to address relatively niggly issues like this? Shouldn’t an expansion of measurement capacity easily be able to allay the concerns of invested leaders hoping to keep their teams and themselves working past this year’s upfront like Speciale is expressing?
Unless, of course, it’s not.
In which case, Nielsen, it’s high time you rectified that. Speciale doesn’t have time, and even fewer of us have patience.
Until next time…