Spanish Broadcasting System Releases Statement in Response to Nielson Company Ratings Changes

According to a press statement released by the Spanish Broadcasting System, the Nielsen Company has revealed that there will be changes to its audience measurement service. Nielson plans to remove a number of Hispanic households from its sampling pool. To be exact, the changes will remove four homes from the Los Angeles PPM Panel.

Regarding the new changes that will occur, Richard D. Lara, the General Counsel for SBS states that it is “unfair and discriminatory,” and said the rating firm was attacking U.S.- based Hispanics. “The restated ratings and rankings reports are, in SBS’s view unreliable, and inaccurately suggest that Spanish-language stations have dropped from top 5 rankings to number 15 or lower. This cannot stand.”

Lara ends by saying that they “…will continue to faithfully serve its Hispanic-listener communities and will not tolerate unfair and discriminatory attacks on Spanish language broadcasters. We will not stop until Nielson’s prejudicial and discriminatory attacks on U.S.-based Hispanics ceases.”

The Spanish Broadcasting System owns and is the operator of 17 radio stations that serve the top Hispanic markets throughout the United States for over 30 years. The SBC is the top U.S. Hispanic markets of New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco and Puerto Rico, airing the Spanish Tropical, Regional Mexican, Spanish Adult Contemporary, Top 40 and Latin Rhythmic format genres. Since ratings affect the advertising rates for stations, these new changes will cause stations like the ones run by SBC to see a drastic drop in advertising sales. 

Nielson released a statement saying that “the integrity of our data is paramount and that is why Nielsen removed four homes from the Los Angeles PPM panel effective with the April monthly audio currency data. An internal review concluded that these homes did not meet our data quality and integrity standards.” They continued by saying that, “we have reviewed the composition and characteristics of the balance of the Los Angeles PPM panel without these homes and have determined that it meets our quality standards.”