US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation

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This Thursday at 10:00am
Senate Hearing on Nielsen Local People Meter. via Maigh, my former boss at Siemens, now working for the VP Chief Research Officer they're known collectively as the C-suite at Turner.

Will the Nielsen LPMs destroy current television ad rates?

Broadcasters have resisted the new system because it has told them things they don't want to hear. When introduced experimentally in Boston in 2001, Local People Meters (LPMs) showed that cable viewing was higher and broadcast viewing lower than previously thought. TV viewing overall was 8 percent lower than reported by the old system. source

According to one station's analysis of Nielsen data, the differences between the two systems can be as much as 20 percent, depending on the daypart. "It's enormous," said the station executive. "Eyeballing it, it's usually no less than 10 percent difference in terms of HUT levels, and up to 20 in some time periods. In some cases, the differences in HUT levels is greater than the rating for the highest-rated show in the time period." source

One obvious disadvantage for on-line publishers is the inability to grossly over-estimate our audiences. Detailed website statistics I use StatCounter.com, and I really like their free service. serve as a double-edged sword.