Nielsen CEO Susan D. Whiting to Testify at Senate Commerce Committee Hearing on Ratings Regulation

Nielsen CEO Susan D. Whiting to Testify at Senate Commerce Committee Hearing on Ratings Regulation

Confirms Company's Commitment to Work with Clients and Community Leaders to Ensure Transparency and Accuracy in TV Ratings

NEW YORK, July 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Susan D. Whiting, President and CEO of Nielsen Media Research, testifies today before the Senate Committee of Commerce, Science and Transportation in opposition to legislation seeking to regulate television ratings. Participating on a panel that includes several other industry leaders, Ms. Whiting is affirming Nielsen's commitment to work with clients and community leaders through a free-market process to "ensure transparency and accuracy in the ratings."

Ms. Whiting and the other panel members are attending the hearing to address bill S.1372, which was introduced by Senator Conrad Burns (R, MT), and which mandates that all television measurement services must be accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC) -- the voluntary industry association that audits and accredits TV ratings -- before being permitted to operate.

According to her testimony, Ms. Whiting believes "S.1372 is both unnecessary and harmful to the long-term interests of the entire television community."

Unwarranted Legislation

Citing Nielsen's recent participation in helping to establish the MRC's Voluntary Code of Conduct, which would deal with the rollout of new measurement technologies, Ms. Whiting says she is confident that representatives from the industry and ratings services could come to terms on the Code through an appropriate give-and-take process. Moreover, if MRC members and the measurement companies approved the Code, Nielsen would abide by it.

Ms. Whiting also notes that Nielsen has already agreed to the condition that no future commercial ratings service would be launched without undergoing a full and open audit. "Since the free-market, private enterprise system is working we do not need a legislative solution to a problem that does not exist."

Unwelcome Results

Not only would S.1372 be unnecessary, but according to Ms. Whiting, it also would "slow innovation to a crawl," because a process of accreditation governed largely by politics and economic self-interest could take years. Confronted with the prospect of developing and testing rating services for a prolonged period without generating any revenue, it is unlikely that companies would attempt to introduce expensive new systems. Circumstances such as this also would create a significant barrier to entry into this market by any competitors. Says Ms. Whiting: "if technology and telecommunications firms faced these restrictions, computers, cell phones and the Internet would still be on the drawing boards."

What is more, Ms. Whiting does "not believe it is good policy to transform the MRC into a vehicle that limits competition from new program sources, especially for smaller, independent and minority-owned stations and networks looking to compete against media giants."

In support of Nielsen's position, several minority competitors, including BET, TV One and the Latin Business Association have issued statements opposing the legislation.

Working With The Task Force

Another organization that takes issue with the bill is the Independent Task Force on Television Measurement, which Ms. Whiting describes as the focus of many of Nielsen's initiatives with clients, Congress and others in the industry. One such project highlighted by Ms. Whiting came about through joint efforts with the Task Force as well as the MRC -- the formation of a special Council for Research Excellence composed of a broad array of clients.

Nielsen created the Council to engage the industry in helping to set the direction of basic R&D in methodological research. In addition to the tens of millions of dollars the company spends on traditional research, it has set aside another $2.5 million for unique research recommended by the Council.

Responding To A Changing Market

In her testimony, Ms. Whiting also cites a number of other initiatives Nielsen has undertaken over the past year to improve its ability to accurately measure all television audiences. For example:

* Nielsen introduced a new digital metering system, the Active/Passive or A/P Meter to track viewing activities when multiple programs are running simultaneously on the same channel; or when viewers are using time-shifting techniques like Video on Demand and Digital Video Recorders.

* Nielsen began to implement a program of personal coaching, performance- based incentives and reminder mailings designed to reduce overall and differential faulting in Local People Meter markets.

* In June the company delivered a plan for enabling measurement of Video on Demand programming in its syndicated ratings panels.

* DVR measurement has been successfully implemented in Nielsen's set- meter and diary markets and the company remains on-schedule for installation of DVR households in the national and local People Meter samples beginning in January 2006.

* Nielsen completed the translation of all of its recruitment materials for sample households into Spanish, developed key recruitment materials in Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Tagalog.

* It also is tailoring its "introductory video" that is provided to new sample households for Asian audiences, and recently added several training procedures on cultural sensitivity to its 10-week Field Training program.

The full text of the testimony is available at: http://www.everyonecounts.tv/news/documents/0727_sdw_testimony.pdf

About Nielsen Media Research

Nielsen Media Research is the world's leading provider of television audience measurement and advertising information services. Nielsen Media Research is part of VNU Media Measurement & Information, a global leader in information services for the media and entertainment industries. For more information, please visit the VNU website at http://www.vnu.com/

Source: Nielsen Media Research

CONTACT: Karen Gyimesi, +1-646-654-8358, for Nielsen Media Research

Web site: http://www.nielsenmedia.com/ http://www.vnu.com/

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