Daily Research News Online no. 6112 - NMR Adds Second Ethnic Advisory Body

NMR Adds Second Ethnic Advisory Body

November 7 2006

Nielsen Media Research has created a further body to advise it on ethnic audience measurement issues, an African American Advisory Council (AAAC) consisting of 12 industry, community, and business leaders.

The move follows the creation of an Asian Pacific American Advisory Council last year, and the company says it has plans to establish a Hispanic Advisory Council in 2007. The councils are in part a response to recommendations made by the Independent Task Force on Television Measurement in 2005.

Among the AAAC's remits are advising on the sampling of African Americans for television audience measurement in the US and reaching out to African American communities. Its first meeting was held in September in New York.

Sara Erichson, the firm's General Manager of National Services, says it is 'imperative that our insight into the viewing habits of this community begins with culturally sensitive recruitment strategies and outreach'. African Americans represent more than 13m US television households � around 12% of the total.

New council member Ken Smikle, President of Target Market News, praises Nielsen for doing 'a commendable job in ensuring that the African American population is represented within its samples' and says the Council can advise it on communicating 'a message of inclusion to the public'.

AAAC initial members are:

Vic Bulluck, Executive Director, NAACP, Hollywood Bureau, Los Angeles
Reverend Jacques Andre DeGraff, Associate Pastor, Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem
Ronald Franklin, Executive VP, Director of Research and Planning for GlobalHue, Southfield, Michigan
Deborah Gray Young, Director of Media, E. Morris Communications, Chicago
Adonis Hoffman, Senior VP and Council, American Association of Advertising Agencies, Washington
Warrington Hudlin, President, Black Filmmakers Foundation, New York
Ivan Juzang, CEO, MEE Productions, Philadelphia
Michelle Moore, Senior VP Marketing and Communications, National Urban League, New York
Cynthia Perkins Roberts, Vice President Diversity Marketing & Sales Development, CableTelevision Advertising Bureau, New York
Ken Smikle, President, Target Market News
Mitsy Wilson, Senior VP Diversity Development, Fox Entertainment Group and News Corporation, Los Angeles
Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., Senior Pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago.

Nielsen Media Research is online at www.NielsenMedia.com and is a unit of VNU, whose group home page is at www.vnu.com .

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