Nielsen Media Research is to enhance the weighting of its National People Meter (NPM) ratings sample, with the aim of making it more representative of the US population.

Nielsen statisticians conducted analyses in 2006 to assess weighting changes to improve the quality of reported ethnic audiences, and suggested that quality would be improved by the addition of controls for Black/Non-Black and Hispanic/Non-Hispanic households, as well as age and gender controls within Hispanic households. This data will be included from September next year.

The firm says it also evaluated the potential for adding household income and ‘presence of phone’ alongside the existing variables. Although including income was found to increase the level of variance, the response error associated with income collection offset the benefit of having it included.

The firm will continue its approach of providing twelve months of ratings impact data prior to the implementation of any changes to the weighting model used with the NPM sample. Clients will receive this from October 2007.

Nielsen is also evaluating the potential of adding digital media data, including that for digital video recorders and digital cable television services. Last week, it published it first official estimate for US DVR penetration - 17.2% - which is higher than the 15.8% of Nielsen's national TV ratings sample that are equipped with DVRs.

The firm is online at www.nielsenmedia.com .

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