The Miami Herald reports Nielsen plans to unroll their electronic ratings measurement system called Local People Meters (LPM) next year in October just in time for the 2007 November sweeps.
Actually having LPMs would probably mean no sweeps for Miami/Ft. Lauderdale at least not as much hype as there currently is during that month
From the article though it’s apparent that WPLG’s GM Dave Boylan isn’t so happy about the Nielsen plan even though LPMs track viewer’s watching habits much better than the current, and very flawed in my opinion, diary system.
Miami Herald
Nielsen to track local TV ratings electronically
Posted on Thu, Oct. 19, 2006
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Nielsen to track local TV ratings electronically
Nielsen will roll out its electronic Local People Meters next year in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale television market.
BY CHRISTINA HOAG
choag@MiamiHerald.com
South Florida’s TV viewership will be measured electronically starting next October, in a move that should give local broadcasters a more accurate picture of who’s watching what.
Nielsen Media Research said Wednesday that Miami-Fort Lauderdale, the sixteenth-largest TV market in the nation, is among four metropolitan areas that will receive the Local People Meters in 2007.
The TV ratings agency has been rolling out the meters, which are devices attached to the TV set, in markets from biggest to smallest for the last several years. The meters will replace the paper diary method, whereby viewers write down the programs they watch during four periods known as sweeps months during the year.
Ratings are crucial in the TV industry, which depends on them to sell advertising and to make programming decisions.
The diaries have come under increasing fire as the TV industry charges that viewers are too overwhelmed to accurately record who’s watching what in an age of 100-plus channel-surfing, digital video recorders and Internet TV.
Still, local broadcasters said the people meters are far from ideal, either.
”Our biggest concern is the sample size,” said Dave Boylan, general manager of WPLG-TV ABC 10.
Although the LPMs will measure a larger sample — 600 to 700 homes, up from the 540 in the paper diary system — it’s still an infinitesimal number when compared to the 1.5 million TV homes in the market, he said.
”Those who accept a people meter in their home may not be your average viewer, and it still doesn’t account for out-of-home viewing,” such as sports bars, Boylan said. “It’s ludicrous.”
Dave Boylan is an idiot. He refuses to stop distorting his local SD feed over WPLG-DT 10.1 with stretch-o-vision.
how mean of him 😀