NBC Disputes People-Meter Figures on Network Viewing

NBC, which officially won the prime-time ratings race for the third straight season, asserted Tuesday that network viewing hasn’t taken a major drop of 9%, despite reports to the contrary.

Instead, the audience for prime-time programs on the three major networks declined only about 3%, said Gerald Jaffe, NBC vice president for research projects.

His comments, variations of which also have been made by third-place CBS, came at the end of the first season in which the new people-meter “active” system of audience measurement was used for national estimates instead of the “passive” system used in past years.

The new system, said to produce lower but more accurate audience estimates, requires each viewer in a participating household to “log on” to a hand-held computer device when watching TV. The old system, using a box connected to a TV set, simply recorded when a program was on, not who was watching it.

The new system’s figures have touched off a statistical debate at a time of fierce competition for viewers by independent stations, of which there now are more than 300, and cable TV systems, which now are in an estimated 51.1% of the nation’s 88.6 million homes with TV.

At stake are millions of dollars in advertising revenue that CBS, NBC and ABC could lose, with each prime-time ratings point now worth up to $100 million annually, according to one NBC official’s estimate.

According to A.C. Nielsen Co. ratings made public Tuesday, NBC, again propelled by its hit “The Cosby Show,” easily won the 30-week season that ended Sunday. It had an average prime-time rating of 16, followed by ABC with 13.7 and CBS with a 13.5. Each rating point represents 886,000 homes.

Audiences were down at all three networks, but the extent of the decline depends on which figures are used.

The much-cited 9% drop is based on a comparison of people-meter ratings for the just-ended season with the ratings of a year ago under the old measurement system. The comparison shows NBC down 10%, CBS down 15% and ABC off 3%.

By another standard--comparing the 1987-88 season’s estimates with those of the people-meter when it was on a limited trial run in 1,000 homes the previous season--the audience decline works out to 7%, with CBS down 14%, NBC down 10% and ABC off 3%, according to NBC’s figures.

Either way, Jaffe told a news conference here, comparisons that his staff made for each season, using data from the nation’s 200-plus markets, showed the decline to be far less.

His comparisons, using figures only for November and February each season, showed audience decline only 3% overall, with CBS taking a 9% drop, and NBC and ABC each having a 6% decline.

Asked where the missing viewers had gone, Jaffe said, “We didn’t track them . . . but most likely they’ve gone to cable.” Some also probably went to independent TV stations, he said, but to what extent he didn’t know.

He said the three networks and the National Assn. of Broadcasters have commissioned a study of the people-meter system “to see what’s right and wrong with the system,” and the study should be ready in about 90 days.

Network shares of the national audience have been steadily declining--they’re below 70% now--amid the growing competition from cable television, independent stations and videocassette recorders.

While the networks are questioning the figures of the people-meter system, executives in the cable TV and independent station businesses are debating which of them is taking away more of the network’s audience.

In a phone interview from Seattle, Preston Padden, president of the New York-based Assn. of Independent Television Stations, asserted that independents have done most of the taking.

“There’s no question that cable networks have attracted some viewers, but the bulk of the networks’ lost audience has gone to independent stations,” said Padden, whose group represents 170 of them.

Ratings data from the February ratings “sweeps” period showed that independent stations had a 19% share of prime-time viewing nationally, compared to a total 10% share for 22 cable networks, Padden said.

Nonetheless, CBS research executive Michael Eisenberg said that the three-network audience decline “is primarily due to basic cable services” and, to a lesser extent, home videocassette machines that primarily are used on weekends.