研究生英语阅读教程Unit3

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A.C. NIELSEN is suffering the customary fate of a messenger bearing bad news. America’s three big national television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC would cheerfully shoot it. They are furious about Nielsen ratings which indicate that the decade-long decline in their share of the American television audience, from 90% in 1980 to around 66% in 1989, is accelerating. The total size of the television audience is also shrinking. Nielsen ratings show far fewer people watched television in the first five months of 1990 than a year earlier. In February the number of women aged 18—49 watching television during the day was a catastrophic 14% down on 12 months earlier. These are the viewers whom advertisers most want to reach. Their viewing in primetime evening hours was also lower: by 5.8% in February, 6.6% in March, 4.3% in April and 1.5% in May.
Mr. John Dim ling, a senior Nielsen executive, admits his company has no idea why people are suddenly cool towards it. But, he says, Nielsen is not in the business of answering sociological questions: what it has done for the past 54 years is measure the size and composition of broadcast audiences. The networks do not want to believe the figures. The decline in their Nielsen ratings means they have failed to attract the audiences which they guaranteed advertisers when they pre-sold them television time at $250,000—320,000 for a 30-second primetime slot. To compensate, the networks have so far this year provided advertisers with about $200m of free commercial air time, “make goods” in industry jargon.
Advertising agencies are loudly on Nielsen’s side. Nielsen executives are wary. They know Madison Avenue too well to put much faith in advertisers tilting against the networks. As one big advertisers admits: “The only thing worse than paying too much (for air time) is being shut out.” on one side 在一旁(边), 斜着 on one’s side 站在某人的一方，支持某人 side-by-side adj. 并肩的, 并行的 side-door n. 1.边门，侧门 2.“后门儿”，间接的途径 side-effect n. 副作用 side-wind adj. 间接的, 不正当的 side arms n. 随身武器(如佩剑,刺刀,手枪等) side-kick n. 伙伴, 密友 side coach 场外指导 side product 副产品
UnitFra Baidu bibliotekThree
Wheel of Misfortune
Questions
1. Why was the number reduction of women audience between age 18 and age 49 considered as a catastrophe? 2. What kind of relationship exists between advertising agents and networks? 3. What device is used now by AC. Nielsen to record TV audience?
The networks may find it harder to win the later rounds. A machine that watches people watching television, a “passive people meter”, is being jointly developed by Nielsen and the laboratories of the David Sarnoff Research Center. It promises to be much more accurate than the old Nielsen diaries (viewers cheated, reporting they had watched opera when they had tuned into game shows or all-in wrestling) or the pushbutton people meters Nielsen has used since September 1987 (people forget to push the buttons off when they leave the room).
air time n. 电影或电视节目开始的时间 air traffic clearance 航空交通批准证； 由地面到飞机控制的区域 air university 空军大学 On the air :broadcasting on the radio or television
The networks are threatening to ask AGB Television Research, a British-based outfit owned by a media mogul, Mr. Robert Maxwell, to provide an alternative ratings service. Nielsen is not immune to the pressure. It is eager to study any changes in its methodology that the networks propose, just so long as the suggested “improvements” do not compromise its good name. Nielsen is not just being a Miss Goody Two-shoes. Independence is the stock in trade of its parent, Dun & Bradstreet. As a market-research and credit-rating company, Dun & Bradstreet cannot afford to compromise a reputation that brings it revenues of $4.3 billion a year simply to retain the business Nielsen gets from the three television networks. Dun and Bradstreet refuses to disclose how much that is. Nielsen executives are a bit more forthcoming. They “do not quarrel” with industry guesses that it amounts to about $15m a year, or less than 25% of its media-research revenues.
The passive people meter has digitalized images of members of the household in its memory. It called the faces it does not recognize “visitors” and it records people as watching only when their faces are turned to the set. If they leave the room, turn away, bury their heads in a newspaper or engage in heavy petting on the couch, they cease to count as viewers. The networks were initially enthusiastic. They are now having second thoughts: you cannot shoot a robot.
So the networks look set to win round one against the advertisers even if Nielsen refuses to cook, or slightly warm over, its ratings. The publicity given to the networks’ complaints will probably prompt the 4,000 members of Nielsen’s sample audience to be more diligent about pushing the buttons on the “people meters” installed in their homes. So an upward blip in the Nielsen ratings is likely. Even if that does not happen, the networks are better protecting themselves against “make goods”. They are closing ranks to draft new forms of audience guarantees that serve their interests rather than those of the advertisers.