A Question of Eyeballs

A QUESTION OF EYEBALLS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Louise Story]
In June, Nielsen Media Research, the ratings agency announced it would start rating commercials, beginning in November. But that announcement has set off a battle worthy of a “Survivor” episode, with just about everyone in the TV and advertising businesses disagreeing over how Nielsen should measure ad viewership. Nielsen is hearing some of the loudest complaints from the cable TV industry, which argues that some of the quirks of their business -- including regional ads in sports, and crawler ads along the bottom of the screen -- make their ads harder to measure. Now, Nielsen’s project has slowed to a crawl. Unable to resolve the infighting, it plans to delay releasing the new ratings until December. And in an effort to help ease some objections to the new ratings, Nielsen has decided to give the new data away for free the first year. It is also calling the new effort an experiment, and will let the networks choose whether to have their commercials rated or not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/business/media/18adco.html
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