Inside Music MediaJerry Del Colliano

You’ve gotta hand it to those greedy bastards who run radio.

You know -- the consolidators, the one rep firm and the one ratings company.

They don’t give a shit.

Take Nielsen.

They screw up the Los Angeles ratings for the past 12 months to the point where no one really can have any confidence in them and then they refuse to reissue the market ratings for that are in question.

No reissue needed.

Trust them.

What?

The ratings don’t have any “significant differences” after a Univision KSCA employee reportedly handed his meter that he should not have had in the first place over to family members while on vacation.

We have a situation.

I’m told that 8 family members were involved in the no “significant differences”.

I didn’t know that Nielsen accepts households with up to 12 members allowed to participate.

That’s just asking for trouble, but let’s save that for another day.

I’ve got the creeps.

Tuesday K-Earth 101 beat the pants off the LA market.

And yes, KRTH is a very good station and I personally love it.

But why am I creeped out as to whether K-Earth really beat KIIS?

Why am I not accepting it without question?

That would require credibility and Nielsen doesn’t have that with me.

With the establishment, yes, of course they love Nielsen.  They look across the table and see the same greedy bastards that they are.

Remember, these are only audience estimates.

Nielsen goes through great legal disclaimer pain to tell paying clients that the ratings are not accurate.

And now they are adding another public farce – I mean, face – to it.

Now why wouldn’t Nielsen just reissue the questionable ratings in the name of credibility and if not that, accuracy?

After all, they claim to know that there are no “significant differences” so I assume that they actually ran the numbers.

If they didn’t, why didn’t they?

And if they did to the point where they know there were no “significant differences” then why not just for accuracy’s sake and maybe for their reputation –just do it right the second time.

Maybe because Bain owns part of Nielsen and half of Clear Channel, Nielsen feels bulletproof.

If its number one $100 million a year client isn’t going to make a fuss, screw everyone else.

And that’s the problem with radio.

Too few have integrity.

Just Ed Christian who is refusing to roll over and play dead to fight the Nielsen lawsuit that accuses non-subscriber Saga of illegally using ratings – the same thing Nielsen reportedly looks the other way on for some companies.

I’ll be very disappointed if Eddy settles his suit with Nielsen quietly and makes everything go away.

He ought to make Nielsen go away.

Radio is in bad enough shape and it has Katz as its one rep firm owned by Clear Channel and their investment bank blah blah bah.

No balls.

No integrity.

This industry deserves what it gets when it can stand by and allow so many destructive things to happen to radio because they have no guts.

And don’t get me started on the music royalty scam being proffered by ASCAP and others.

Crying to Congress that radio is the bad guy and too few radio people are standing up and shouting this message – that without radio you would never have had a music industry in the first place.

And the sanctimonious Congressmen who pretend to stand up for starving artists when record labels have done more to cause artists to starve than anyone else.

We in radio want to play their music – a lot, even too much.

And the labels get to keep all the profit from record sales and we’ve never complained about the arrangement because it was a win-win then and a win-win now.

Get me before Congress.  I’ll tell them.

But never mind.

The Nielsen thing lit my fire because the industry that is losing its ground to digital is the very reason why radio will die.

Speak up.

Stand up.

Get fed up.

To quote the old r&b song “is you is or is you ain’t” going to fight for what is right.

Nielsen, print the correct LA ratings.

You screwed up.

It’s the right thing to do.

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