From the WSJ Online (subscription required):

“In becoming the nation’s top-rated cable news network, Fox News Channel was helped by millions of conservative viewers who tuned in to watch the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Tony Snow and Cal Thomas. But to win a ratings war in Washington, Fox-parent News Corp. is counting on the support of some unlikely allies: Democrats.
News Corp. is quietly courting Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill to block a new local-TV ratings system that lowers ratings for many of its stations. The company contends the new ratings system, launched by Nielsen Media Research in four major television markets last year, greatly undercounts the number of African-Americans and Hispanics watching shows such as “Girlfriends” and “The Parkers” on the UPN network. Although Viacom Inc. owns UPN, News Corp. owns several big-city affiliates of the network.”

A couple of thoughts here: what the hell is this doing in the halls of the Federal government? Nielsen is a private firm that offers its services to the television industry, which for reasons beyond anyone’s understanding, collectively agrees to use the company as more or less the sole arbiter of success in broadcasting. Not good decision-making in my book, but certainly not something in need of government control.

Secondly, if you missed the subtle anti-Nielsen tone in the above paragraph, umm… Nielsen sucks. It’s a horrible, outdated system with a zillion flaws and no hope of reform. The basic problem is that the system severely undercounts every time people watch TV in a group.

Therefore, college students watching together in a dorm or large inner-city families or the legions of Warren Bell fans who meet in amphitheaters nationwide are not getting their due. But the real problem is that Nielsen technology fell way behind TV technlogy long ago. Staggeringly, the system still relies on paper diaries!