What is Going on in The Tampa Market?

3

Tampa has not been a low maintenance market for Beasley Media. Of course there’s the ratings tampering situation with Bubba The Love Sponge that sort of involved the company because Bubba was on their station. Now, an issue with a PPM panelist that Nielsen decided to remove from the panel that will affect Beasley’s Hispanic station WYUU. The company issued a statement on the Nielsen decision to let everyone know it had nothing to do with what went on in that home.

The situation began when Nielsen decided to investigate a household that was carrying two meters. Beasley’s WYUU benefited from whatever the PPM holders in that home were doing, but apprently they were not following Nielsen’s rules. And, after being coached by Nielsen during a visit on how to follow the rules, the household was booted from the Panel.

The stream of Beasley’s Spanish Contemporary station, WYUU (92.5 MAXIMA), was #1 among persons 18-34 in the January 2017 weekly PPM ratings, which is what caused the uproar, and most likely a complaint to Nielsen from a competitor. On Monday Beasley reacted to Nielsen’s decision to boot the household.

Beasley COO Brian Beasley: “Following the decision by Nielsen to remove the Tampa household from the ratings, Beasley COO Brian Beasley said, “Our company and other broadcasters play no role in selecting panelists and households for inclusion in PPM data gathering. In the case of the Tampa household that was removed from the PPM panel, it was Nielsen that chose to have two different users in that household be PPM participants. Most notably, we do not and have never had any relationship or contact with the household or users removed from Nielsen’s Tampa panel of PPM holders.”

Nielsen issued the following statement Monday. “In early February, we identified a household in Tampa whose meter wearing compliance warranted additional coaching. Per our standard operating procedure, we conducted an on-site visit of the household and provided subsequent training to ensure proper usage of the PPM device. Following the training visit, the household’s meter wearing compliance behavior did not change and per our quality assurance procedures, we removed the home effective with the start of the March survey.”

3 COMMENTS

  1. What could they have been doing, that they didn’t change, and caused that much ratings distortion? More curious, why is Nielson being opaque about it? Advertisers should wonder why the ratings program is a black box that they don’t get to see inside…

  2. Two meters delivered a number one rating?!? And for this, the stations are paying over a half million dollars? It’s pretty good to be Nielsen.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here