News Broadcasting
News Corp leads lobby to regulate Nielsen
MUMBAI: Nielsen Media Research’s plan to introduce peoplemeters has upset several broadcast networks in the US including Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Their grouse: the metres will reflect reduced viewers and cause advertisers to switch to cable or satellite TV.
The broadcasters, led by News Corp, are lobbying lawmakers for legislation to regulate Nielsen whose ratings set prices for the $60 billion annual TV advertising in the US.
The group is circulating a proposed bill on Capitol Hill that would regulate Nielsen and force the company to get approval for new audience metres from the Media Rating Council, said a Bloomberg report quoting Fox TV stations president of operations Tom Herwitz. The council is an industry group with TV companies constituting about 40 per cent of the membership.
News Corp has contested that the introduction of peoplemeters would “undercount minorities,” a view which has caught on among station owners Tribune Co. and Gannett Co. Their campaign prompted Nielsen to open an office in Washington for the first time and forced it to delay plans to role out the devices in Washington and Philadelphia, Bloomberg reports. “Before all this happened, we had been excluded from the political brouhaha,” said Don Lowery, Nielsen’s vice president of government relations. “It was naive to think it would continue.”
Broadcasters including News Corp, Tribune and Gannett sent a 25 May letter to Nielsen asking the company to delay its new people- meters, the report added. “The goal of ensuring accuracy in ratings justifies the minimal intervention of the Congress,” Herwitz said.
The draft bill has been given to Senator Conrad Burns, a Republican from Montana, and Senator Gordon Smith, a Republican from Oregon, both of whom serve on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. The bill would require Nielsen to submit to mandatory audits (current practice requires voluntary audits) by the Media Rating Council and adhere to set standards.
Senator Burns is said to be reviewing the broadcasters’ bill.
Nielsen has already installed local peoplemeters in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. The plan is to use the devices in the top 10 markets which cover 30 per cent of viewers. The devices are more accurate because they electronically track what each member of a household is watching, spokesman Jack Loftus said in the report.
The peoplemeters are set to replace older metres and handwritten diaries. Under the diary system, Nielsen pays viewers $2 to $15 for completing and mailing them in. That system, Nielsen says, is less accurate because people often forget what they watch or neglect to fill in the diaries.
Broadcast networks have been losing audience to cable and satellite TV. The three largest broadcast networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — last year attracted 22 per cent of US. viewers, down from 56 per cent in 1970.
News Broadcasting
CNN-News18 to air live counting day coverage for five state election results on May 4
The channel is rolling out its biggest election coverage machinery yet for results day on 4th May
NOIDA: The votes have been cast. Now comes the reckoning. CNN-News18 is pulling out all the stops for results day on 4th May, when counting begins across five battleground states — West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry — in what promises to be one of the most closely watched electoral verdicts in recent memory.
The channel’s coverage, titled Battle for the States: The Verdict, kicks off at 7am and runs through the day across linear TV, connected television and YouTube. It is the culmination of CNN-News18’s multi-format editorial initiative, Battle for the States, which has tracked the polls from the beginning under the theme Road to Power.
At the operational heart of the coverage will be the Live Results Hub, the channel’s central command centre built to collate, verify and process real-time data flowing in from reporters stationed at counting centres across constituencies. The hub combines newsroom intelligence, analytics and on-the-ground reporting to deliver what the channel promises will be the fastest and most accurate results coverage in English news.
Leading the on-air charge will be primetime anchors Rahul Shivshankar, Anand Narasimhan, Aman Sharma, Nabila Jamal and Shivani Gupta. They will be joined by a wide panel of commentators including author Chetan Bhagat; GVL Narasimha Rao, senior leader of the BJP; Smita Prakash, editor of ANI; activist Saira Shah Halim; political analyst Sumanth C Raman; Abhijit Iyer Mitra, senior fellow at IPCS; Amitabh Tiwari, founder of VoteVibe; columnist Abhijit Majumdar; Nalin Mehta, managing editor of MoneyControl; political analyst Tehseen Poonawalla; senior journalist Subir Bhaumik; and political analyst Manojit Mandal.
Shivshankar, who serves as editorial affairs director at CNN-News18, set out the stakes plainly. “Counting day is one of the most watched events in the electoral cycle, where speed and credibility are tested in real time,” he said. “Battle for the States: The Verdict is built on that promise, combining ground reporting, sharp analysis and cutting-edge election technology to give viewers the clearest and fastest route to the verdict. On May 4, CNN-News18 will once again be the nation’s most trusted channel to witness democracy in action.”
Smriti Mehra, chief executive of English and Business News at Network18, framed the coverage in broader terms. “Elections are defining national events, and audiences turn to brands they trust in moments that matter,” she said. “CNN-News18 has consistently led from the front in every election coverage, and this special programming reflects the scale of our ambition and editorial strength.”
The channel has form here. It claims to have been India’s most preferred English news destination for election results for the past 20 years, covering everything from the 2024 general elections to the Delhi, Maharashtra, Bihar and BMC polls on the back of what it calls an “Always First, Always Right” record. Five states, one day, and a nation waiting for answers. The clock starts at 7am on 4th May.
