Nielsen Plans Expansion of Latino Surveys : Entertainment: The system will be funded by two big Spanish-language TV networks, which hope to land more ad dollars.

A. C. Nielsen Co. said Thursday that it would launch the first TV ratings service specifically designed to measure Latino audiences.

The new measurement system will be financed by Telemundo and Univision, two competing Spanish-language TV networks, which are seeking to capture a larger slice of the $30-billion TV advertising pie.

A yearlong pilot study in Los Angeles revealed that TV ratings for Spanish-language programs were 25% to 30% higher in the pilot sample than under Nielsen’s regular measurement system.

The TV ratings company plans to install 800 “people meters” during the next 18 months in Latino households around the country.

Nielsen has 4,000 people meters that deliver overnight audience measurements of network TV programs. About 200 are installed in Latino households--a number that Nielsen contends is proportionate to the Latino population.

By building a parallel ratings system in only Latino households, Nielsen says, it can more accurately measure the Latino audience.

Univision and Telemundo have committed $36.8 million to launch the system. Telemundo is controlled by investor Saul P. Steinberg’s Reliance Group Holdings.

Latino broadcasters and advertisers have long maintained that TV audience measurement systems undercount viewers of Spanish-language programs.

“We’re trying to provide a comparable national audience measurement system for Hispanic viewing like the one that has long existed for the general market,” said William Grimes, president of Hallmark Cards-owned Univision.

Grimes said the Latino population is growing six times faster than the rest of the U.S. population. But, he added, advertising expenditures targeted to the Latino market do not match viewing levels.

There are 25 million Latinos in the United States, according to Strategy Research Corp., a Miami-based marketing consultant that specializes in Latino research.

Hispanic Business, a magazine in Santa Barbara, said advertising targeted at the Latino market increased 8% last year to $628 million. That included $274 million for television, less than 1% of the market.