:: media :: Is Nielsen Killing TV?

+ Donna Speciale isn't keeping it quiet that she's not happy with Nielsen.

I'm pissed at Nielsen - personally," Donna Speciale, president-U.S. broadcast and programming at MediaVest, said Thursday during one of a series of panel discussions on the 2006-07 ufpront advertising marketplace, hosted Thursday by Media magazine.

"They basically put the onus on all the research departments of all the agencies and the suppliers," Speciale fumed, after being asked what her agency's policy was for dealing with the disparate ratings data during its negotiations with the networks, and TV syndicators.

"I feel like Nielsen has created chaos in this industry once again," she said, adding that the TV ratings supplier "should have held back this information and, on their own, done some due diligence" before releasing it as a marketplace currency.

You know, it's sort of interesting, how many people do you know who are or even know of someone who's a Nielsen family? Just a random thought but, I've lived on multiple (heh two) coasts and I've never known a soul who was a part of the Nielsen "family". How do you get to be one? Who are these people that giving high ratings to some pretty crappy shows? I'm just curious. It's probably that I did learn all this back in uni, but I'm sure some other useless information is now getting tapped by the synapse...like Andrew McCarthey was in Weekend At Bernies....very unuseful info. ;)