NewsCorp storm over TV ratings

NIELSEN Media Research has launched a blistering attack on Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp in a row over proposed changes to the way that television audiences are measured in New York.

A spokesman for the viewer-tracking group accused NewsCorp executives of threatening to 'destroy' Nielsen if it persisted with replacing a manual method of measuring viewers' preferences with an electronic system. The new approach has now been delayed.

'They [NewsCorp] said that unless we stopped and did not go forward with the 'people meter' service, they would destroy us,' Nielsen spokesman Jack Loftus told reporters. There was no response to the comments from NewsCorp staff.

The bust-up comes just a day after Murdoch said he was moving the headquarters and NewsCorp's registration to New York from Sydney. It also echoes a dispute in Britain between radio boss and former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie with Rajar, the body that measures radio audiences.

The issue is critical as measurements of media audiences help to determine the advertising rates that media companies can charge their clients. Nielsen wanted to change a paper diary method, where viewers kept a record of what they watched, with an electronic people meter. The company planned to start the new system tomorrow, saying the revamp would boost the figures' accuracy.

But NewsCorp, which owns the Fox television network and DirecTV satellite television service, has countered that the changes would undercount viewers from minority audiences, including blacks and Latinos.

Loftus alleged that NewsCorp executives had also threatened to try to tarnish Nielsen's corporate reputation if the New York scheme went ahead.

'They told us they would do everything they could do to discredit us and raise hell in the marketplace,' Loftus told reporters.

Nielsen has put the people meter project on hold until 3 June.