Nielsen Signs Up First Spanish Language Network

Media company Univision Communications is to become the first Spanish language television network to join Nielsen Media Research's national TV ratings service, the Nielsen Television Index (NTI). The service provides television ratings for all the major US networks.

The NTI is based on a National People Meter (NPM) sample of approximately 10,000 households. Data for Univision will be available in the NPM sample and corresponding reports from December 26th this year.

Univision will maintain its subscription to Nielsen's National Hispanic Television Index (NHTI), which measures only Hispanic audiences, until September 2007. At this time, the NPM sample will become the sole sample for both English-language and Spanish-language media.

Ceril Shagrin, Senior VP of Corporate Research at Univision, says the company will work with Nielsen to refine the NPM sample. 'We are confident that, with the initiatives Nielsen has in place, the NPM sample of Hispanic audiences will be as representative as NHTI by September 2007 or earlier.'

Sara Erichson, General Manager of Nielsen's national services, says that NHTI is currently the largest, most representative national sample of Hispanic audiences available. She adds: 'As we move toward one comprehensive ratings system, we will continue to work with all of our clients to ensure that the NPM sample appropriately represents the growing Hispanic population.'

Ray Rodriguez, President of Univision, describes the inclusion in the main index as an historic step, stating: 'Univision will finally be measured alongside its main competitors - he major English-language broadcast networks - and for the first time, advertisers and media buyers will be able to see our audience in the national charts.'

The companies' web sites are at www.univision.net and www.nielsenmedia.com.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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