[Mb-civic] Rupert Murdoch Never Gives You His Number...

[Jim Burns]

"Rupert Murdoch's Fox Fix"
New York Daily News Editorial
August 10, 2005 

While most media companies are trying to determine with accuracy how
many people are watching, reading and surfing their wares, News Corp.,
Rupert Murdoch's entertainment and publishing empire, is trying to buy
and bully its way into burying new TV ratings that could cost it
millions of dollars in revenue. 

News Corp. has fielded an army of Washington lobbyists and is throwing
campaign gifts at both Republicans and Democrats in a naked effort to
protect its bottom line. Responding to the mogul's money and muscle,
pliant lawmakers have rewarded him with what is essentially his own
private bill now pending before Congress. 

Murdoch's target is Nielsen Media Research, the firm that produces the
Nielsen ratings that are used to set advertising rates. A couple of
years back, Nielsen decided to change the way it counted viewers in
local markets like New York and Los Angeles. Instead of having people
fill out diaries of what they watched, Nielsen began hooking televisions
to electronic "people meters" that track channel flipping. 

While Nielsen had long used the system nationally, local results showed
that viewers were switching from broadcast to cable in larger numbers
than realized, and that some Murdoch programs had fewer viewers than
believed. 

Pardon the pun, but he went off the dial. First, News Corp. ginned up
specious charges that Nielsen's people meters undercounted
African-American viewers. That got the attention of black leaders, who
at first complained, but then stood down when the facts came out and
Nielsen began to work with an independent task force to ensure the best
possible count of minorities. 

Having played the race card and failed, Murdoch turned to the GOP
Congress, where his bill would give a private broadcast industry panel
the power to bar any new ratings system. In other words, he would strip
Nielsen of the independence that's so crucial to advertisers, which
explains why the ad industry strenuously opposes the measure. 

Four Republican senators and Rep. Vito Fossella of Staten Island, are
behind this Fox fix. And make no mistake, it is a fix. Roll Call, the
Capitol Hill newspaper, found that a Murdoch lobbyist wrote an early
draft of the bill for lead sponsor Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana. 

There are many outrages here. When Nielsen finds that Fox News has
beaten CNN, News Corp. blows the trumpets. But when the ratings signal
less money for Murdoch's TV stations, Nielsen numbers are not just
untrustworthy, they're racially suspect. When Murdoch's New York Post,
our dear rival, senses advantage, the paper demands stringent
circulation auditing. But when the figures go south in Murdoch's TV
realm, News Corp. tries to force Washington into squelching the count.
When the Post senses a government intrusion into private enterprise, the
paper screams bloody murder. Except when Murdoch twists arms and buys
favors. Then anything goes. 


© 2005 Daily News, L.P.