Reply #14: Oh, wow, read this blog from MyDD, which links to another etc etc. [View All]

[madfloridian]

Read it all and take what you want to believe and accept and just leave the rest. It involves Nielson ratings, Fox, Clinton advisors, News Corp...and on and on.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/30/174338/386

"The Tacky Clintonista-CBC-Fox News Backstory
by Matt Stoller, Fri Mar 30, 2007 at 05:43:38 PM EST

Ok, so get ready for a really messed up backstory on the whole Fox News/CBC/Presidential politics angle. Ben Smith at the Politico reminded me this sordid episode, and it's a nice microcosm of horrible insider corporate Democratic politics. Here's the story.

Nielssn is the company that counts how many people watch a TV show so that ad buyers can plan their buys. A few years ago, they proposed a change to their ratings system, which was based on paper surveys of sample audiences. They wanted to automate counting with 'people meters' that could more accurately count viewership and demographics. This is a big deal, because Nielsen is the referee for ratings, and tens of billion of dollars in ad buys are contoured around their ratings system. When the service was first rolled out, initial tests suggested that certain Fox programs had lower minority audiences than was counted under the old paper system. If News Corp let this change happen, Fox was going to take a hit.

At first, according to the New York Times, News Corp just tried threatening Nielsen."

And a little more:

"It's a pretty disgusting and hilariously corrupt episode. Former (and current) Clinton advisors lobbying successfully on behalf of Rupert Murdoch to help his company cheat advertisers, and working through the CBC and CHC to do it. This is the gross and excessively regulated media world intersecting with 1990s New Democratic politics intersecting with campaign consultants intersecting with a whole lot of Clintonistas getting very very rich intersecting with the CBC and CHC.

There is a way out of this moral mess. First of all, there's no question now that the CBC should cancel this debate. But that's not all. Since Howard Wolfsen of Glover Park works for Hillary Clinton, and since she was part of this morass (not to mention the Murdoch fundraiser), she should do her part and announce she's not going to this debate."