Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1963)

Cumtnings says he^d like to see ARF '"''become the watchdog of the research industry^' at IS, Y. meet (unnamed). "We're already in the ARF goldfish bowl, but we're alone." And Phillip W. Wenig, SRDS Data president, said "ARF is the organization which can do it. " Barton A. Cuminings, Compton's chairman and chief executive officer, picked up the cudgels following lunch, saying "I would like to see the ARF become the watchdog of the research industry. I suggest that the ARF be given the responsibility to assess the validity of the audience measurement research offered by the major independent research organizations and that the cost of this investigation be borne by the membership of the ARF, not the research firms. Altogether the ARF must become more dynamic, more forceful." Without conducting its own investigation of rating services, ARF must forfeit its claim to leadership in the advertising research field, he added. Cummings proposed that each m The dispute on ''rating ranges" rages Rating ranges, referred to by Charles P. Howze, Jr. at the ARF session, have provoked a small cyclone inside and outside the advertising and broadcasting industry. Among those known to favor ranges (for example, instead of report at 10 rating, a range of 7 to 13 might be shown to include statistical variance) are a number of agencies, advertisers, and ARB. On record in favor of ranges are Congressional investigators, TvB, and other agencies. TvB's president Norman E. Cash, in a statement last week said: "From a practical standpoint, I can appreciate the problem of using the additional numbers range of error would represent. All sorts of tables would grow into most complex things. We wouldn't be looking at just two numbers anymore, we'd be talking in terms of ranges. It would be difficult, time consuming and costly to include these ranges of error, but I believe none of us would oppose them on these groimds." \ number of professional researchers make no bones about their opposition, believing that in the final analysis, the media buyer would have no choice but to choose a figure, probably the mid-point, and use it for analysis. Or lows of one set of ratings might overlap with highs of another set, creating an impossible situation. And as one industry source asked: "What do you do about spot tv packages? What do you do about the number of homes in any area? \rv they to be covered in ranges also? What do you do about audience composition data which would have to be ranged? What would J. Walter Thompson do with all the material NOW in its files? .\nd why doesn't the government report all its business analyses on a range basis?" 28 ARF member donate a sum of mone\-, pro-rated on its membership category, to a special fund set up to investigate audience measurement practices. Nielsen's Nielsen also had other thoughts. He called attention to the fact the NAB Rating Council has announced its intention to make similar studies, that all the leading broadcast measurement researchers ha\e been asked to support their work, that users of audience research would support the NAB program, though ANA and 4 A were represented by observers rather than membership. "Both the ARF and NAB include many of our clients in their membership, and we hope that both organizations will reach a clear understanding about their methodological research activities, so as to avoid imnecessarv duplication of effort and other conflicts . . . We hope the right hand and the left hand will ha\e a working arrangement." Recognized industry leaders had other comments, though not alwavs willing to provide a direct quotation. "Where has ARF been until now," asked several, registering disgust at the fact that the contro\ers> had Ix'cn going for man\' months, even years, without action by the foundation. Another called attention to ARF'j "pro-print bias." "While only t^vc liroadcast representatixes are or tluM'r board (Arthur Hull Haves oi CBS Radio, and Hugh M. Beville Jr. of NBC), six publishers an represented." If anything was clear following; the ARF proposal, it was the fact that much remains to be done, anc resoKed, before the problems oi audience measurement can b( solved, in the weeks, months, anc \ears ahead, if ever. ^ SPONSOR/7 OCTOBER 1963