Washington, DC - Congressman Ed Towns (D-Brooklyn) has a taken leading role in trying to secure congressional hearings into Nielsen Media Research's new system to count television viewers in the New York City market, which may undercount minority viewers.  Nielsen had planned to implement the new system on April 8th but due to pressure from Towns, other members of Congress, and local NY officials, has delayed its rollout until June.  

"There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered before this system is implemented," said Towns. "When this new system was tested, many of the top rated minority viewed shows saw their ratings drop by 40, 50 or even 60 percent, compared to their ratings under the current system.  I don't think that the data could be any clearer.  This system is not ready for primetime."

Towns, along with Congressman Vito Fosella (R-Staten Island and Brooklyn) sent a letter signed by 43bipartisan members of Congress to the Chairman of the Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over this issue, urging him to hold hearings on the matter.  In fact, upon receiving the Towns/Fossella letter, the Subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Michigan) issued a statement saying he is prepared to hold a hearing before the rescheduled launch.

"There has been a groundswell of support for delaying the rollout, and I am pleased that Nielsen took the responsible step by listening to those of us who raised concerns," said Towns.  "However, New York City is the number one media market in the nation, and we must ensure that any problems are worked out before irreparable harm is done.  That means we need a thorough hearing to look into potential problems associated with this new technology to assure viewers, advertisers, and programmers that Nielsen is accurately counting minority audiences."

Nielsen is planning to switch to a new monitoring system called Local People Meters (LPMs), which are supposed to record what individuals in a household are watching.  It relies on viewers to use a TV remote control like-device to punch-in which members of the household are viewing.  Towns, who is the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Braintrust on Telecommunications, said he will continue to press for the hearing until it is officially scheduled.

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