Survey of Spanish-TV Viewers May Change

In meetings with ad buyers here this week, executives from Univision Communications Inc. and Telemundo Communications Group, the country’s largest Spanish-language broadcasters, said that Nielsen Media Research is close to unveiling a new system of counting Spanish-speaking homes. The move potentially would give these broadcasters higher ratings and allow them to charge more for ads.

Before the new system becomes official, Nielsen needs approval from the Media Ratings Council, a government accreditation group that weighs in on TV and radio research, according to Nielsen spokeswoman Karen Kratz. If the change is approved, it will bring to an end a long wait for Spanish-language television network executives, who for years have maintained that the current system relied on outdated models of gathering data.

Univision’s co-president of network sales, Dennis McCauley, told advertisers at a Lincoln Center presentation Wednesday that the Nielsen changes will “alter the way media is bought and sold.”

(Even with the supposed undercount, the massive Univision is the fifth-largest broadcast network in the country, after ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox. It reaches 85% of the Spanish-speaking viewing audience in the country, as measured by Nielsen.)

But Kratz said it is premature to assume that Univision’s ratings will soar as a result.

“It’s definitely a big change, but I don’t know if we’re going to see a big difference in numbers. [Univision and Telemundo] are going to look for any ways they can to get those advertising dollars on their network,” she said.

Still to be determined is how Nielsen will identify a Spanish-language television viewer: according to the language spoken only by adults in the household or according to the language spoken by both adults and children in the household.

This fall Nielsen will start issuing new reports along with those generated under the current system so that broadcast network clients can make comparisons.

“After a full year of looking at those differences, we’ll implement it,” Kratz said.

Univision and Telemundo now complain they must purchase two services from Nielsen: one that enables advertisers to see their ratings among other Spanish-language networks and one that enables them to compare the ratings with those of all the networks, in any language.

The new system will streamline that data.

“A lot of advertisers want to see an apples-to-apples measurement, so you end up subscribing to both,” said Alan Sokol, chief operating officer for Telemundo, which was purchased by NBC this year.

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Calvo reported from Los Angeles, Jensen from New York.