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November 12, 2007
Just back from a fairly quick, two-day trip to Houston and Dallas. As always, I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with stations, talking about the business in general, presenting my product and just connecting with friends. One of the topics that comes up frequently these days is Nielsen. There’s a lot of discussion about Nielsen methodology and the frustration we all share in being beholden to a company that so monopolizes such a critical component of our business - audience measurement.
This is a particularly hot topic in Houston as the market just came online with LPM data, something Dallas went through just a couple of years ago. I was talking to a General Manager in Los Angeles last week about the subject. He mentioned that, during a recent meeting with the Nielsen folks, he discovered that on a particular recent day the audience sample for African American women 18-34 in the LA market was one person. There are around 800 meters in LA (a market with 4 million people) and, on this day, African American W18-34 were represented by one person. Outrageous, isn’t it? It occurred to me that if we added up the cost of all of the man-hours spent complaining about Nielsen, we would have more than enough resources to start a competing audience measurement company. Think about it.
I really wish I could just sort of beam myself in and out of television stations. Houston Intercontinental Airport has to rank as one of the worst in the country, and DFW is great if you’re an airplane. And without GPS, I’d be sunk getting around either Houston or Dallas and, even then, I find myself driving in circles. I tend to eat less healthfully on the road, although I’m at least conscious about it and try my best. All in all, modern business travel is difficult at best and can make a good day end on a sour note if one travel logistic or another goes awry.
The best anecdote to travel fatigue that I’ve discovered, especially for a middle-aged person like me, is a 30-minute walk outdoors upon awakening. Sometimes I’ll do a walking meditation and just focus on the walk and my surroundings, while on other days my head will be busy as I think my day through, planning and considering the tasks ahead. One of the things I had to do in Dallas today was return a book lent to me by Tribune GM, Joe Young. The book, “Extraordinary Golf,” is probably the best golf book I've ever read, and so this morning I found myself thinking about it and some of the interesting exercises it recommends. Now that I've returned to LA after a really great day in Dallas, I’m already thinking about the 1st Saturday morning tee as I write. Delicious.
Ritch Colbert
Principal
Program Partners, Inc.
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