1 1 2 NIELSEN MEDIA RESEARCH -----------------------------------------x 3 COUNCIL FOR RESEARCH EXCELLENCE 4 MEETING OF BOARD MEMBERS -----------------------------------------x 5 June 25, 2009 6 1:00 p.m. 7 8 Concierge Conference Center 9 780 Third Avenue 10 New York, New York 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 REGENCY REPORTING, INC. 22 Certified Court Reporters & Videographers 23 425 Eagle Rock Avenue 575 Madison Avenue 24 Roseland, NJ 07068 New York, NY 10022 25 www.regencyreporting.net (866) 268-7866 2 1 APPEARANCES: 2 3 MEMBERS OF THE BOARD: RICHARD ZACKON, Facilitator 4 IRA SUSSMAN, Chair MIKE HESS, Vice Chair 5 GEORGE IVIE MIKE DONATO 6 MICHAEL LINK MICHELE BUSLIK 7 SHARI ANNE BRILL STEVE STERNBERG 8 COLLEEN FAHEY-RUSH CERIL SHAGRIN 9 SUSAN CUCCINELLO PAT LIGUORI 10 LAURA COWAN BETH ROCKWOOD 11 MATT ROSS ALEX CORTISELLI 12 MIKE PARDEE NOREEN SIMMONS 13 BETH UYENCO 14 PRESENT BY PHONE: 15 JACK WAKSHLAG MARK KALINE 16 JOANNE BURNS DAN MURRAY 17 KATE SIRKIN BARBARA SINGER 18 ALSO PRESENT: 19 ROBERT M. LEVINE, Court Reporter 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 MR. HESS: We have a tradition, 2 summer/winter/spring, rain/shine. Luckily 3 shine in New York, have a tradition of 4 starting within two minutes or on time. And 5 so it's 1:02. I call the meeting to order. 6 This is our first summer meeting. Speaking 7 for New Yorkers, I will say, knock on wood, 8 that it's not raining right now. It may rain 9 later today. But this is the first real 10 summer day. And so I want to welcome 11 everybody. 12 It looks like we have a good 13 in-person turnout here. Not too bad. 14 Especially, I know, I recognize some of the 15 faces from the ARF 4.1 meeting yesterday. So 16 we've been to a couple of conferences in a 17 row. So, welcome, summer or not. 18 We have a pretty full agenda. 19 And in keeping with our other triggers of 20 finishing on time, I urge everybody who is on 21 the agenda to try to work within their time 22 frame. So we'll have a steering committee 23 report. And then reports from a number of 24 other committees as well. 25 Take a look at the agenda there. 4 1 We'll finish with Nielsen, Paul and Michael 2 giving an update and some new business. And 3 so we'll look to adjourn at 4 o'clock. 4 Could we also find out besides 5 the people who are here, could we also get a 6 sense of who's on the phone? 7 MR. SCHWARTZ: Lyle Schwartz. 8 MR. HESS: Lyle, okay. Anyone 9 else on the phone? 10 MR. MURRAY: Dan Murray. Not 11 Donna. 12 MR. ZACKON: Who's after Dan? 13 Just Dan and Lyle so far. Okay. 14 MR. HESS: Anyone else? 15 MR. ZACKON: How about for the 16 people on the phone. Just say who's in the 17 room. 18 MR. HESS: Go around the room, 19 starting on Ross. 20 MR. ROSS: Matt Ross, Hurst. 21 MS. BUSLIK: 22 : Uyenco. Most. Paul . 23 Nicotine. George media rating 24 {counsel|council}. More routine . 25 Union lever. My Michael need. Bash 5 1 singer craft. sack the facility 2 . Make Hess {and|an} care {and|an} 3 chair. Susan Susan Virginia suggestion 4 C abdomen. Pallet , ABC owned 5 television. Clone rush, MTV network. 6 Lawyer calendar man. C. Steve 7 stern. Roger wood discovery. A 8 election court {sell|cell} . 9 reps. 10 MR. ZACKON: We have here, by the 11 way, Timmet Roberts who's an intern student 12 at the course that I teach at NYU. And she's 13 done intern work on behalf another of the CRE 14 this summer. We're lucky to have her. 15 MR. HESS: Okay. Again, welcome. 16 Without further ado, if we've got 17 the attendance, I think, Richard, we have a 18 quorum from the point of view -- 19 MR. ZACKON: We do. That's why 20 I'm counting. 21 MR. HESS: Having enough bodies 22 in the room and on the phone. Thanks for 23 those who called in. Appreciate that. 24 Without further ado, I'll ask Ira 25 Sussman, our chair of this hearing committee, 6 1 to give his update and report. 2 Ira. 3 MR. SUSSMAN: Okay. Thanks. 4 MR. HESS: By the way, let us 5 know on the phone if you can hear us, okay? 6 We have plenty of mics. So there should be 7 no excuse. 8 A VOICE: I also see Walter's 9 being listed. I'm not sure who that would be 10 by attendee. 11 MR. ZACKON: Ceril Shagrin just 12 joined us. 13 MR. SUSSMAN: So we had a 14 steering committee call a little over a week 15 ago. And thank you for everybody for 16 participating. Everybody when we call a 17 steering committee pretty much seems to be 18 there. Amazing. 19 We had a few issues that we 20 discussed. One was the collar and bylaws. 21 We discussed some updates to it. And those 22 updates, changes were done by Nielsen counsel 23 Mananna, who's been very helpful. The 24 changes were agreed upon by the steering 25 committee. And they are distributed today. 7 1 I thought we were going to have a 2 red line here. But they are in the wording 3 of the document that you have, the things 4 that we, that were changed. Discussed 5 continuation on a research committee to when 6 employment status changes. So we've kind of 7 had a non-written rule. 8 A VOICE: You're fading, Ira, in 9 and out. 10 MR. SUSSMAN: I'm right in front 11 of a mic. 12 We had an unwritten rule that 13 when your employment status changed and 14 before you picked up another position, if 15 you're on a committee, you can continue on 16 the committee. If you're on the counsel you 17 can have some sort of bridge to your next 18 job. Again, that membership would not 19 necessarily continue to your next job. But 20 it's kind of that interim continuation. 21 The second was addressing in 22 writing, as opposed to just discussion, 23 removal, removal from the Council if not 24 attending three or four quarterly Council 25 meetings. And participating in at least one 8 1 committee. 2 So that was added to our bylaws 3 number 3, was wording when to deal with the 4 possible membership termination from the 5 Council or a committee due to confidentiality 6 issues and/or conflict of interest within the 7 Council, or within individual research 8 committees. So this is just stuff that we've 9 talked about. But we wanted to get it into 10 the bylaws. 11 Fourth was the addition instead 12 of just being TV or video-focused, it's now 13 the addition of all other media now allowed 14 within the focus of our research here. 15 And fifth was wording to clarify 16 joint CRE and Nielsen rules governing 17 disclosure and use of research funding for 18 most of the things that we do here, CRE. 19 Nielsen owns it. We kind of control it. And 20 we just put it into words that we're going to 21 work together as adults to figure out how to 22 get it out into the marketplace. 23 MR. DONATO: Are we going to get 24 to talk about VCM on that issue today, 25 sharing the data. 9 1 MR. SUSSMAN: It probably will 2 come up, VCM. 3 MR. DONATO: No. I'd like to. 4 It's been a year or so, better part of a year 5 or so. So it would be unfortunate if our 6 discussions about this drags on for six 7 months. It would lose a lot of its value 8 so... 9 MR. HESS: I thought that it 10 would come up in two places; one under media 11 consumption and engagement. Then I plan to 12 bring it up under new business. Paul, as I 13 mentioned to you yesterday at the ARF. 14 MR. DONATO: My hope is that we 15 can resolve it today and we're done. 16 MR. SUSSMAN: Real quick. We 17 voted on accepting Horst Stipps as Council 18 member replacing the seat left my Christina 19 Silvestre. He couldn't be here today. 20 Do we need to approve it here? 21 MR. ZACKON: We need to approve 22 it. 23 MR. SUSSMAN: I make a motion 24 that Horst Stipp replace Cristina Silvestre 25 representing you on the Council. 10 1 A VOICE: I second. 2 MR. HESS: Let's vote in two 3 places. First, in the room. Everyone in 4 favor of Horst replacing Christina, please 5 raise your hand. Anybody opposed? We have 6 no names. 7 And on the telephone I understand 8 there are two of you, unless somebody else 9 came. Lyle and Dan, just say aye or nay. 10 The ayes? 11 (En masse, aye.) 12 MS. SIRKIN: Kate Sirkin, I 13 joined as well. Aye. 14 MR. ZACKON: Welcome, Kate. 15 MS. SIRKIN: Thank you. 16 MR. HESS: Are there any nays? 17 So the motion is passed. Horst will be on 18 the Council. 19 MR. SUSSMAN: We'll invite him 20 back. 21 MR. ZACKON: By the way, if I can 22 say something, Horst has been very, very 23 active on the media consumption engagement 24 committee. That might be a future model for 25 people who might want to join the Council as 11 1 they get active in a committee. And then 2 it's kind of a natural transition. Not that 3 it's a requirement. But it's a nice model. 4 MR. SUSSMAN: Good point. 5 Third topic that we discussed was 6 kind of the question of we vote in our chair. 7 We vote in our vice chair. But we don't vote 8 in our committee chairs. And there's a 9 question. Should we be voting in committee 10 chairs. And it was discussed. And the 11 steering committee came up with a 12 recommendation to allow each committee to 13 choose their chair or replace their chair, as 14 opposed to being voted in by the Council for 15 long-term active committees that we have. 16 Some of them are going to be very long-term 17 committees. That was about it. 18 Any comments or questions? 19 MR. HESS: Is that something we 20 have to vote on? Do we have to state that as 21 a motion? It doesn't feel like we would. 22 MR. ZACKON: Bylaws don't 23 specify. 24 MR. SUSSMAN: We've been acting 25 where a chair just kind of organically comes 12 1 to the head of the group as opposed to making 2 a rule about it. We'll just continue that 3 way. 4 MS. SHAGRIN: By "organic" you 5 mean volunteers? 6 MR. SUSSMAN: If you don't show 7 up at the meeting, you're a volunteer. 8 MR. ZACKON: Volunteer is a kind 9 word for it. Thank you. 10 MR. SUSSMAN: Anything else? 11 MR. HESS: Well, Ira has put us 12 ahead of schedule, knock on wood. 13 MR. LINK: Actually, steering 14 committee, there's one other issue. This is 15 more of a housekeeping note in terms of 16 vendors and payments. So particularly those 17 of you that are in charge of committees where 18 you actually have vendors doing work of any 19 type. 20 So anyone who needs to get paid 21 out of CRE funds, we need to make sure that 22 we have four documents, essentially, before 23 they start work or their payment winds up 24 getting several delayed, as unfortunately, 25 we've seen. And you can't get all of those 13 1 from Richard and myself. But they are 2 essentially a contract with Nielsen. Because 3 again, as everybody I think remembers in 4 here, Nielsen actually pays directly to these 5 vendors. So we actually have to have a 6 contract on file with them. That would 7 include a statement of work which is the 8 second piece. And then there are essentially 9 two: a W-9 form and a new supplier request 10 form. So we actually have these four forms. 11 But there have been some times 12 where we've selected some vendors. They've 13 gone off and done work. We didn't get the 14 right paperwork. It was time to pay them. 15 And then we had to kind of backtrack and get 16 all this stuff put in place. 17 So, again, just kind of a 18 housekeeping note, that you are overseeing 19 vendors as part of your job here. Then we'll 20 just make sure we have all that in place. 21 MR. IVIE: What's the request 22 form? 23 MR. LINK: That has information 24 internally to our systems that gets loaded 25 in. Yes, it's got all of that basic 14 1 information. So when something, an invoice 2 comes in, we check just to make sure that 3 they are in the system. Then it goes off to 4 accounts payable. And accounts payable won't 5 do anything, obviously, unless they have all 6 the paperwork. We've got the system all 7 worked out. 8 The other thing, and this rarely 9 comes up, but when you all in the room here 10 actually sometimes have had expenses, we have 11 found a way to fast-track that. We still 12 have to have some of these documents on file. 13 So you need to keep that in mind. But we are 14 able to get at least payments back out to CRE 15 members faster than we can actual vendors. 16 MR. HESS: Is there a way to 17 formalize that? I'm not sure everybody could 18 write all this. 19 MR. LINK: I actually have a 20 draft, working with Richard. It's a 21 two-pager. And we can get that out to 22 everybody then. 23 MR. HESS: Then I'm going to ask 24 Richard before we just move on, Richard and 25 Ira, on those changes. 15 1 MR. ZACKON: We need to vote 2 them. 3 MR. HESS: That's what I was 4 going to say. And do we need to vote those 5 now. So I guess we need a sense of the 6 Council. Are these because change is 7 something that you would like to view during 8 the summer or over the Fourth of July and 9 then come back and vote online or at the next 10 meeting. Or are these, Ira, of the less 11 substantive nature where you'd recommend we 12 try to vote now. 13 MR. SUSSMAN: Well, they were 14 distributed. And you were able to read the 15 difference in wording kind of buried in 16 there. I can't even find them. 17 Unless anybody had any questions 18 about any of the individual ones, ready to 19 vote on them? They were discussed beforehand 20 on other meetings following through on that. 21 MR. ZACKON: Formally, the 22 Council needs to vote. So they can either 23 ruin their Fourth of July weekend or they can 24 vote now is what you're saying? 25 MR. HESS: I think it's fair 16 1 though. Because some of these sounded 2 reasonably substantive. That somebody at 3 least has a chance to say no, I want time for 4 clarification. So that we don't have to read 5 it over in July. 6 Kate, were you going to say 7 something? I thought I heard a voice. 8 Sorry. 9 MS. SIRKIN: No. 10 MR. HESS: So the motion is -- 11 MR. SUSSMAN: I move that we vote 12 on it. 13 MS. SHAGRIN: Second. 14 MR. HESS: All those in favor of 15 accepting the bylaws with changes in the room 16 please raise your hand. All opposed? I 17 don't see anyone opposed. 18 And then on the phone there are 19 three. Those in favor of accepting the 20 bylaws as written, as revised say aye. 21 (En masse, aye.) 22 MR. HESS: Opposed? Okay. So 23 the bylaw revisions have been passed. We now 24 have a new set of bylaws. 25 MR. ZACKON: Mike, before we go 17 1 on with the nonresponse, I just wanted to 2 review some things that this Council has done 3 since the last time we gathered in an 4 official meeting, which was March 11th. And 5 any one of them would be an accomplishment, 6 right. 7 But I hate to think we just 8 stepped over kind of a lot that's happened, 9 beginning with the day after the last meeting 10 of this Council. There was a meeting at 11 Nielsen's office where the results of the VCM 12 study was made to Susan Whiting and staff. 13 Which, for those of you who were there, was 14 quite a successful meeting. Susan was 15 clearly delighted by what we'd done. Nielsen 16 management was delighted. I think we made 17 Paul look good in the process which delights 18 all of us. 19 We have our logo up there, but 20 that was actually done and completed at the 21 last meeting. We have our website up, right. 22 That is not a small detail. We actually have 23 a website that we can be proud of and who 24 reflects who we are on the Council after. 25 And kudos to Michael Nathanson for his work 18 1 on that. Brian Sukora who executed that. 2 Not a small feat. We had a meeting on March 3 22nd. One of you may have attended that. 4 March 27th, the client meeting where we 5 presented the data. That was clearly a huge 6 success from any number of ways. 7 MR. HESS: You consider that to 8 be a little meeting, Richard? 9 MR. ZACKON: I'm joking. We had 10 a huge PR effort that a number of people that 11 participated in very heavily. And brought a 12 lot of attention, positive attention to the 13 Council. That's a success. 14 We had our report out by Ceril's 15 nonresponse committee. And we'll hear more 16 about that. And we've not yet gone public 17 with that tool. We also had the presentation 18 at APOR, some findings from that study. 19 That's a huge success. We presented the VCM 20 study at CTAM, ATC. The ARF rep and 21 Universal Communications Association. 22 Also, there was another one this 23 past week. Someone was there. OOMA, right. 24 And we launched a new committee with Beth 25 Uyenco's Insights to Practice. 19 1 In our work world we get so busy 2 on what we do, we really don't take a moment 3 to acknowledge the accomplishments that we 4 had. So there's just a lot of things going 5 on that people ought to be really proud of. 6 MR. HESS: Richard, thank you for 7 reminding us of all those accomplishments. 8 It is a really good feeling. And just 9 speaking personally, when I joined this 10 committee, I was one of the first members on 11 the first day. I remember people, it was 12 almost like college, right, where the 13 president says, look on your left and on your 14 right, because half these people won't be 15 here at graduation. I don't know if I was 16 sitting next to the wrong people. But I 17 remember. 18 MR. ZACKON: Or went to the wrong 19 college. 20 MR. HESS: Or the wrong college. 21 But that was said on my first day in freshman 22 year in college. 23 And I remember by analogy at my 24 first meeting of the CRE when we didn't 25 really know how we could ever form or how 20 1 would we ever get this stuff done. But maybe 2 I was sitting next to some naysayers who said 3 it's not going to work. The person on my 4 right said the reason it's not going to work 5 is you're not going to get agencies to talk 6 to each other, or the various stakeholders 7 with different agendas to talk to each other. 8 And so on and so on. 9 So I'm really incredibly proud of 10 the fact that four years later, yes, it took 11 some time. But yes, we did pull that off. 12 Not just one thing, but all the things that 13 Richard said. And I think, in fairness, 14 we're hitting our stride. We know how to 15 deliver stuff. And we know how to keep doing 16 this stuff. And people show up for the 17 meetings. We start on time and finish on 18 time. And we've created a new committee to 19 activate Beth's committee. So it feels 20 right. So let's keep it up. 21 Richard, thanks for reminding us 22 of the accomplishments. 23 MR. SUSSMAN: Are those two 24 people still on the Council? 25 MR. HESS: They graduated. 21 1 MS. BUSLIK: Richard, you asked 2 for some quotes from us about the research 3 study that went out. The last time I looked 4 it wasn't on the website. 5 MR. ZACKON: We requested it on 6 the website. I think it's in. 7 Steve, do you know the status, in 8 whose hands that now is? 9 MR. STERNBERG: I don't. I don't 10 know. 11 MR. ZACKON: Okay. Let me make a 12 note. Because we spoke. We didn't get it 13 published. So at the very least, until we 14 do, we should get on the website. And next 15 time we do a press release on VCM, we might 16 want to include it as part of that press 17 release. But let me find out the status of 18 that. 19 MR. HESS: Okay. Well, should we 20 go back to the agenda? 21 MR. ZACKON: That was the piece I 22 wanted to include. 23 MR. HESS: I appreciate that. 24 Thanks. So, Ceril. 25 MS. SHAGRIN: We're going to end 22 1 so early, I don't know. Well, I want to echo 2 what everyone else said because this is a 3 worthwhile use of I know my time. And I 4 think we've done some things we can feel 5 really good about. And so I hope you're 6 going to feel really good about the 7 nonresponse research as well. While not as 8 as exciting and new and glamorous as video 9 mapping, I think it adds some really great 10 learning from it. And I think we touched the 11 surface. And there's a lot more to go. 12 So I thought I'd sort of take you 13 through. You know, we did do the 14 presentation at APOR. It was well received. 15 You know, people really were impressed with 16 the quality of the research. I know that NAB 17 said they might be interested in helping to 18 fund another piece. So I think that there 19 was a lot of interest. 20 People appreciated that we were 21 delving into this nonresponse area in a way 22 that everybody wished they could do and 23 couldn't do. And I actually started my 24 comments by saying if we didn't have the 25 Council For Research Excellence, this study 23 1 would never have been done because no one 2 could afford it. 3 MS. SHAGRIN: And we need to 4 decide how we're going to make this more 5 public. And that's something I'd like to 6 hear back from you. But I thought I'd give 7 you some follow-up that needs to be done or 8 should be done and why it should be done. 9 The professors and graduate 10 students that worked on this are going to be 11 writing papers based on the data they already 12 have. And anytime they write a paper, a 13 research paper, of course we will get a copy 14 and, again, it will give us more insights 15 into the data. 16 We contracted with them to do a 17 certain amount of work. They did everything 18 we asked them to do and then some. But I 19 know that Carolina who presented at APOR is 20 doing their thesis on what she's learning 21 from the nonresponse. And I know they're all 22 very anxious. The two graduate students and 23 the professors to continue to write papers 24 about this research. So that doesn't cost us 25 anything. That they're going to do because 24 1 they want to do it and because they're 2 scientists. 3 There's also some new research 4 that can be done using the existing data. So 5 we don't have to pay any data collection 6 costs. But we may want to pay one or two 7 graduate students, as we did with the initial 8 research, to get an independent digging into 9 some of the data in terms of looking at other 10 data that wasn't part of the original scope 11 of work for them. But which I think is the 12 richness of the data, that if we don't use, 13 we won't get our true money's worth out of 14 it. 15 And then there are a number of 16 Nielsen analyses that uses the data from the 17 nonresponse research tied to data that 18 already exists at Nielsen. And, you know, 19 we're talking about that in Beth's committee. 20 And with Michael to see, you know, what are 21 some of the things we can do. So some of the 22 thoughts that we had on what we could do is 23 we have some insights as to responders and 24 nonresponders and whether or not that results 25 in bias in the data. But what we'd like to 25 1 lay on top of that is that a better/worse and 2 eliminating by weighting in terms of 3 differential faulting. So using data that 4 already exists at Nielsen, look at 5 differential faulting. And tying it to 6 responders and nonresponder characteristics 7 could give us greater insight. And, again, 8 doesn't require new data be collected. This 9 is data that exists. 10 I'm going to talk a little bit 11 more about characteristics that differed. 12 But while in the presentation that you saw 13 you saw differences or bias in viewing, but 14 it was basis run household viewing or head of 15 the household. And it was a root statistic. 16 It really wasn't an average minute statistic. 17 It was just reach. How many people watch 18 this network. So we probably want to look at 19 viewing of the head of house in the Nielsen 20 sample and determine looking at the different 21 types of heads of house and compare the 22 reach, number of heads of house in that 23 sample to the reach numbers from the 24 nonresponse bias to sort of see is that 25 reflective. And how does it look. And we 26 1 really don't have to. We can just look at 2 basics. 3 But the point is that when you 4 look at basics or alternates, you're looking 5 at responders. So while the nonresponse 6 looked at responders, and the nonresponders, 7 right now we're looking at responder, and we 8 want to compare some of that data to what we 9 learned in the study. 10 Also, in terms of comparing cume 11 estimates. So this is all data that exists 12 at Nielsen that doesn't require any new data 13 collection. And that, hopefully, either 14 someone at Nielsen could look at or we can 15 figure out looking at Beth's committee how 16 best to get this done. 17 We did find in the nonresponse 18 bias that it differed by household size, 19 county size. And that there were viewing 20 differences. So we want to look at those 21 viewing by household size and county size. 22 And dimension the impacts of nonresponse bias 23 because of the differential in those two 24 characteristics. And that would be something 25 that maybe one of the graduate students might 27 1 want to work on. 2 And then, perhaps one of the most 3 interesting findings in the nonresponse bias 4 was the TV equipment inside the households of 5 responders and nonresponders. And the 6 viewing habits inside the household of 7 responders and nonresponders. 8 There was significant difference 9 in terms of big screen TV, digital cable, 10 DVRs and those households that had three or 11 more TV sets. And we know viewing differs by 12 these types of people of households. So we 13 want to dig into that and get more. 14 Again, no new data be collected. 15 But data to be analyzed and looking using 16 Nielsen data to understand different viewing 17 patterns. And then, again, we want to look 18 at any bias that is a result of different 19 behavior of responders and nonresponders. 20 And on the next I tried to 21 identify key behavioral differences that came 22 out of the research. For example, 23 retires are more likely to have the TV on 24 only when someone is watching, rather than 25 all the time. Refusers were more likely to 28 1 have visitors watch TV in the past 30 days. 2 There's a pattern here where we think the 3 more complex they think being in a panel will 4 be, the less likely they're going to respond. 5 They were also more likely to 6 have had someone bring a TV into their 7 households. Refusers were less likely to 8 plan TV watching in advance. They were more 9 spontaneously. They were less likely to do 10 other things while they were watching TV. 11 And they were more likely to turn the TV on 12 just for company. 13 So, you know, taking these 14 differences and looking and trying to 15 dimension the impact of these behavioral 16 differences is something I think that 17 graduate students could begin to and do. 18 So I'm probably going to come 19 back after I have a committee meeting and 20 maybe we'll make some -- we can discuss it a 21 little bit today. But the funding that we 22 will need is funding to fund graduate 23 students. And depending on the amount would 24 be whether it's one or two. 25 MR. HESS: Any discussion, 29 1 comments? 2 MR. HESS: Ceril, I have a 3 question. On the VCM, which maybe I was a 4 little closer to, although I think I attended 5 meetings on both, there was a sense at some 6 point that the report that Sequent Partners 7 did was actually finished. Like it was done 8 and we had sign-off. And then there's 9 follow-up that we'll be talking about today. 10 How are you positioning the 11 material you just showed us? Is the report 12 actually done and accepted? 13 MS. SHAGRIN: Yes. 14 MR. HESS: So these are all 15 follow-up items that will require a 16 recommendation for how to do it, a grad 17 student and otherwise, costs, timing, and so 18 on. But the report is done. 19 MS. SHAGRIN: The report is 20 finished. I have a separate report for the 21 diary. And separate report. One of the 22 things that I need to talk about, and Richard 23 is, we really, we've two things we'd like to 24 do. One is do we want to put out any sort of 25 press release about this study. We spent a 30 1 lot of money, did a lot of work, and found a 2 lot of things out. 3 And the other is in terms of the 4 final report, how do we structure it. 5 Because others have contacted us and said 6 have you accepted the final report. Do you 7 want one overview statement. So we have the 8 reports. We have the copies of what was 9 presented at APOR. And I'm ready to turn 10 them over any way we want to turn them over. 11 MR. HESS: Okay. So that also 12 then you would follow-up with the 13 communications committee on that? 14 MS. SHAGRIN: Yes. 15 MR. ZACKON: Along with that, we 16 were talking about the idea of a Webinar 17 working with Nielsen, like the event we did 18 on March 26th, not just a live feed component 19 with it. 20 MS. BUSLIK: I think we should 21 definitely do that. 22 MS. SHAGRIN: And two questions 23 that I had. One is the graduate student who 24 presented APOR has gotten a number of 25 requests who attended APOR who have asked for 31 1 a copy of her presentation. They called and 2 asked me whether or not she could provide it. 3 And it's up to the committee as whether or 4 not she can provide that. So I need your 5 direction on what to tell her. I'm very 6 comfortable with her providing it. But it's 7 your decision. And the other is assuming, 8 well, we have to go ahead and do some of 9 these things. I'm again, begging for 10 volunteers for my committee. 11 MR. HESS: In terms of the grad 12 student request, can you just give us a 13 recommendation, or is that something anybody 14 wants to discuss? 15 Could you just recommend what 16 you -- 17 MS. SHAGRIN: I think the grad 18 students that we used the last time were 19 $250,000. And I believe the way it was 20 handled was a donation was made to the 21 school. But it pretty much paid their 22 tuition and their expenses while they're 23 working on this. The students we had were 24 full-time on this for a year. 25 MR. HESS: I think you were 32 1 saying though the grad student who presented 2 at APOR whether or not she can -- 3 MS. SHAGRIN: Yes. They want to 4 know whether or not she can mail out or send 5 to people who call her directly. Because she 6 presented at APOR, can she give them a copy 7 of just what they presented? 8 MR. HESS: Do you have a 9 recommendation on that? 10 MS. SHAGRIN: I would allow her 11 to do it. 12 MR. HESS: Nielsen have any 13 issues with that? 14 MR. LINK: None. Not at all. 15 Since it was presented in public, it's okay. 16 MR. DONATO: I kind of like 17 George's suggestion though. 18 MR. IVIE: I didn't make it yet. 19 MR. ZACKON: Meeting before the 20 meeting, all in favor? 21 MR. DONATO: We should really 22 announce it at the Webinar. And then she's 23 absolutely free to send it. 24 MS. SHAGRIN: Right. Which is 25 one of the reasons I said we have a meeting. 33 1 Let me check with them. But I'm 2 uncomfortable with everybody, with her 3 distributing it. Although she's only going 4 to distribute it to people who had an 5 opportunity to see it at APOR anyhow. 6 MR. HESS: Still I would also go 7 along with the sequencing, too. 8 MR. ZACKON: There's a Nielsen 9 client meeting coming up in July. Are we in 10 a position to announce a Webinar at that 11 event? So that's kind of broadly known to 12 follow shortly after that event. Does that 13 make sense to you, Ceril? 14 MS. SHAGRIN: It does. We just 15 have to decide how we're going to do that. 16 Is that something we're going to present? Is 17 that something we're going to ask Frankie to 18 present? And she'll do. She does a great 19 job. 20 MR. DONATO: Do you have 21 experience doing Webinars? Do you have 22 experience doing that? 23 MR. ZACKON: I'm actually taking 24 a live course on Friday on how to do that. 25 But we can do it. 34 1 MR. DONATO: We can offer 2 assistance if you can't and you want to. 3 MS. BUSLIK: We should make a big 4 splash about it. Now, just not putting it 5 out there, but we should make a splash about 6 the Webinar. Make sure everybody knows who's 7 supposed to know about it. 8 MR. ZACKON: Well, put the study 9 up on the website as well. 10 MS. SHAGRIN: To the Board of 11 Trustees. Announce the Webinar. Do the 12 Webinar. And then -- 13 MS. BUSLIK: Post it. 14 MR. ZACKON: Welcome, Susan. You 15 get your star again. 16 MS. CUCCINELLO: Hi. 17 MR. ZACKON: We learned from the 18 VCM study that the promotion falls somewhere 19 between the committee and the communications 20 committee. And we're trying to get that 21 straight. I should probably set up a two-way 22 call, three-way call. You, me and Jessica. 23 The communications committee. So we can plan 24 about the press release and promotion for the 25 event. The Webinar, we can work with Nielsen 35 1 on that. Maybe Mike can join in on that. 2 MS. SHAGRIN: What you want to 3 put on the website, I have two great big 4 reports. Do we want to put the presentations 5 that have already been done? Do we want to 6 put an overview? 7 MR. ZACKON: We have to talk 8 about that. I think whatever we present at 9 the Webinar should be what goes up on the 10 site. Then we can also clue all the other 11 reports as well. We have multiple reports 12 from VCM up on the site. 13 MS. BUSLIK: I just have a small 14 concern about announcing anything at the 15 Nielsen meeting. 16 MR. HESS: Can everyone hear 17 Michele? 18 MS. BUSLIK: We sort of got a lot 19 of feedback and pushback. This was Nielsen's 20 study. Therefore, the results were what they 21 were. Not that I don't love Nielsen and 22 going to their meetings. But maybe it 23 shouldn't be announced at that meeting. 24 Because it's a CRE thing. Just a thought. 25 MS. COWAN: I see your point. I 36 1 think it might be worthwhile to have it be a 2 stand-alone press release. Not necessarily a 3 stand-alone Webinar, but separated from. 4 MS. BUSLIK: Not announced at the 5 Nielsen meeting. Sorry. 6 MR. IVIE: I have just a word of 7 caution. Nielsen recently announced another 8 study they performed on button-pushing in 9 meter services. And when that came out. 10 And, you know, there was a lot of merit 11 behind that study and the reason why it was 12 done. It was taken by the press and promoted 13 in a way that I think accentuated some known 14 issues, the study. 15 MR. IVIE: I'm just throwing out 16 that when we do announce the nonresponse 17 study we probably want to strategize about 18 how to manage that information. Because 19 these are truly unknowns that were coming to 20 the table as a result of this study. 21 So, you know, we can all act upon 22 them. But I believe we need to treat it with 23 appropriate perspective. So we want to think 24 about it. 25 MR. HESS: Again, I think that's 37 1 why we have the communications committee to 2 do that. 3 Richard, you are going to set up 4 some meetings of appropriate people. 5 MR. ZACKON: I'll set up a 6 meeting with Ceril, Jessica, myself. So we 7 can, maybe from that, put together a team to 8 plan how to put this out there. Anyone here 9 is invited to contact Ceril, Jessica, myself 10 to participate in that. 11 MR. HESS: Ceril, you're also 12 saying no. Even beyond that, you're still 13 looking for volunteers for your committee at 14 this point? 15 MS. SHAGRIN: Well, we have a 16 very small committee left. And it's been 17 sort of in hiatus as we got the final report. 18 But I would like to get them involved in 19 prioritizing next steps. And assuming that 20 there is some funding for the graduate 21 students writing up specs of what we want the 22 graduate students to do, part of the success 23 of the committee was of the research was 24 before we did the first day of data 25 collection, we decided as a group what we 38 1 were going to try and find out. We decided 2 as a group where we would have enough sample 3 to break things out. And what we agreed 4 doing up front, we couldn't find out from 5 that study because the sample wouldn't 6 support it. 7 So I'd like to do that now to go 8 into the next research. It's not going to be 9 anywhere near as costly. Because we're not 10 collecting new data. But anybody who's 11 interested, send me an E-mail. Tell me the 12 day. I'd like to get the committee meeting 13 going and start going into it. 14 MR. HESS: Is this also something 15 just as as general, a more general practice 16 we can put on the website? Because we allow 17 people to be on committees that aren't on the 18 CRE. And so obviously it's up to us as 19 managers to tell people at our companies that 20 they come join. But also we can post this on 21 the website as well. 22 MR. IVIE: We actually have a 23 nonmember on the committee already. Norma is 24 on the committee. 25 MS. COWAN: That's something that 39 1 could definitely be announced at the client 2 meeting; the ability to participate without 3 being a member of the CRE. 4 MR. HESS: Yes. Good point. 5 MR. ZACKON: By the way, I don't 6 know because it occurred, I believe, after 7 our last Council meeting. But one of the 8 other successes of the CRE is based on his 9 performance on this study. Bob Gross was 10 nominated to head the Census. He's still 11 awaiting confirmation. 12 MR. DONATO: Right. In the 13 interview, his background check with the FBI, 14 I'm serious, I noted his ability to deal with 15 very competing -- I mean, I hyped this up 16 with competing distractional parties. And to 17 bring together in a landmark study. 18 MR. IVIE: We were tough. 19 MR. HESS: Those same people 20 would have told me four years ago it would 21 never work, that kind of thing, excellent. 22 Okay, George. 23 Are we still on this topic? 24 Because we do have an agenda. 25 MS. UYENCO: I do want to make 40 1 one suggestion in terms of what we would put 2 from the nonresponse up on the website. If 3 we're going to have Carolina present it at 4 some event, it would be nice to videotape 5 her. Because it's awfully hard to just 6 understand the wealth of the insight, all of 7 your looking at in PowerPoints which tend to 8 be very cryptic. So if we can tape her, if 9 we can record her presenting it so that 10 people hear the narrative behind facts and 11 figures on the slides that would be much 12 better. 13 MS. BUSLIK: What she's going to 14 work on. 15 MR. HESS: Is that something 16 Nielsen is willing to do or do we have to go 17 into our own expense? 18 A VOICE: Because the Webinar is 19 not necessarily going to be video. 20 MS. UYENCO: It could be video. 21 or audiotape. It would be kind of nice for 22 Carolina. 23 MR. HESS: George, did you still 24 have a comment? 25 MR. IVIE: We briefly discussed 41 1 this at another meeting. But in terms of 2 Ceril's slide where things we have to analyze 3 and layer on this data, there's actually 4 another layer, that is when people don't push 5 their buttons, but they don't necessarily 6 fault. That's another form of nonresponse. 7 So I think the group needs to consider that. 8 MS. SHAGRIN: I have added to the 9 list, but it's definitely part of the list. 10 I think it's on the list that we talked to 11 Michael about as well. 12 MR. HESS: So noted. Anything 13 else on nonresponse? I know we're running 14 early. And let's keep it that way, if 15 possible. 16 Now, I'm just going to say Shari 17 is up next on media consumption. She's not 18 in the room. Shari, are you on the phone at 19 this on this point? 20 Richard. Have we gotten -- 21 MR. ZACKON: I sent her an 22 E-mail. I have not heard. 23 MR. HESS: I have not heard 24 anything. I did not see her at the office 25 this morning. So let's move on to Universal. 42 1 MR. IVIE: Move up. 2 MR. HESS: Let's move on to 3 universe estimates then if you're ready. 4 MR. IVIE: Sure. I'm going. I'm 5 not the chair of the universe estimates 6 committee. Nancy Gallagher is the chair. 7 But she's overseas right now. And I'm going 8 to try to give you a brief update on the 9 happenings in that committee which I 10 participate in. 11 The committee is focused on 12 creating and assessing the process for 13 developing media-related universe estimates 14 which Nielsen uses and we all rely on. And 15 the germination really of this project is 16 trying to learn about the efficacy of the 17 process that Nielsen already uses and develop 18 some R&D about whether there are better 19 processes out there to learn about and 20 project media-related universe estimates. 21 A couple of the reasons why we 22 thought this was important in forming the 23 committee is because as it relates to new 24 media device penetration in households. Very 25 often there can be a delay in the way you can 43 1 learn about those and estimate the 2 penetration of those. So we're trying to 3 understand if there's a better, faster, maybe 4 even cheaper way of developing that 5 information. 6 And then also, the current 7 process that we all rely on is extremely 8 Nielsen-dependent as it relates to 9 media-related universe estimates. In all the 10 other universe estimates that we rely on we 11 get them from independent sources like Census 12 and things like that. 13 But in this case, if you want to 14 understand the penetration of DVRs in 15 households or how they're used or other 16 devices, we're actually using Nielsen's 17 samples to derive those estimates which we 18 then use to project Nielsen's samples from. 19 And these processes are actually 20 very powerful, very well done and very 21 reliable. But we're wondering whether they 22 can be done any better. And, more 23 independently. So that's how the committee 24 was formed. 25 We have a nice group of people 44 1 working on the committee. When I say nice, 2 they're all friendly. But it's a sizable 3 group of people. And when we met, we decided 4 that what we would try to do is put together 5 a project to build questionnaires, understand 6 questionnaires, and maybe even execute some 7 independent research to pick a market or 8 something like that. And develop some 9 universe estimates. 10 So we went along that process. 11 We solicited potential vendors and got them 12 to respond. And, very quickly, we made a 13 decision that we actually wanted this 14 enumeration process to occur in person. 15 Because the way Nielsen gathers the vast 16 majority of this information is in person. 17 We have a good feeling about the reliability 18 of that process. And we don't want to 19 degrade our numbers in any way. So we want 20 to also gather our information in person. 21 We got back a number of responses 22 to our requests for proposal. And we 23 selected a vendor. The vendor's name is RTI, 24 a very good size interviewing company. They 25 do all kinds of research. And they made a 45 1 pretty good proposal to do this universe 2 estimate study with us. 3 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: Is that the same 4 company we interviewed for nonresponse? 5 MR. IVIE: Yes, yes. There are 6 not a lot of organizations out there that do 7 this quite as well. Anyway, we picked the 8 market Dallas a lot because of they're quite 9 a diverse population in Dallas. But yet, 10 it's not quite as challenging as let's say in 11 New York. And they responded. You know, 12 created a plan to go out and enumerate 13 households. 14 We've been working on a 15 questionnaire and questionnaire design as a 16 group. We conducted what are kind of like 17 focus groups. But they're cognitive studies 18 to see if how people are understanding the 19 questions that we've developed. And there 20 are lengthy reports. For example, that are 21 results of these cognitive interviews. 22 You know, when you're asking an 23 Hispanic about satellite television, how 24 should you phrase that. So that it's 25 understandable. And there was a lot of 46 1 learning that took place there. And we are 2 at a position where we've created a 3 questionnaire. And literally this week, I 4 gave RTI approval for that questionnaire. 5 And they're going to be later this month 6 training their personnel in getting ready to 7 field them to gather some of this information 8 for us. 9 And we have a couple of open 10 items and things we're working. But it's 11 coming together to train and execute this 12 research. Try to get an understanding of how 13 people are learning and accepting the 14 questions. And then, ultimately, how they 15 compare to the results that Nielsen gathers 16 with its own process. So that's sort of the 17 bottom line. There are a lot of variables. 18 I'll just give you a sense for 19 the types of information we're trying to 20 gather. A lot of this is also gathered by 21 Nielsen in their media-related UE process. 22 But, for example, wire cable, digital cable, 23 VOD-enabled cable, satellite, DVRs, VCRs, 24 DVDs, HD sets, Internet, broadband, DSLs, 25 Wi-Fi, cell phones, MP3 players. All these 47 1 kinds of technologies. So it is a rather 2 lengthy questionnaire. And response rate is 3 a key issue for us in this process. 4 So the last thing I need to talk 5 about, believe it or not, I didn't drive this 6 but it's weird that I'm presenting it to you, 7 is that the committee was talking about also 8 having this work audited or observed. 9 Because, you know, we're going to try to make 10 sure that this data collection was done very 11 well. Because in the end, we want to compare 12 it to some research that we know is done very 13 well. 14 So we actually were asked to 15 contact our auditors. I'm with the MRC in 16 case you didn't know. And we did. We 17 contacted our auditors and asked them if they 18 would want to be willing to observe the 19 training and observe a few of the interviews. 20 It's not an audit per se. But 21 it's more looking at the interviewers to see 22 if they were well trained and that they know 23 what they're doing. And they agreed to do 24 that actually at a pretty nominal cost which 25 is about $10,000. So I think technically 48 1 Richard said, we don't need to seek approval 2 for that amount. 3 MR. SUSSMAN: 9,999. And you're 4 good. 5 MS. BUSLIK: We'll put in the 6 dollar. 7 MR. IVIE: We wanted to form the 8 committee and make sure there are no 9 disagreements, particularly because we're on 10 the committee. This is Ernst & Young. Not 11 the MRC. We're not making any money off 12 this. And I think that's what's going on. 13 MS. BUSLIK: I think one other 14 thing the committee, we tried very hard to 15 do, what we tried to do it if there's any 16 learning, that Nielsen can then incorporate 17 it in the way they do the same thing and 18 gather the same information. 19 So there was a lot of trying to 20 coordinate the different procedures. And 21 also that it just doesn't lie out there as 22 okay, this is what we know now. But how can 23 we continue to do it and use it in the 24 future. So that if any of these things 25 become weights or whatever. That it's an 49 1 ongoing process. So that was part of the 2 confusion or part of the complexity of what 3 we were trying to do. 4 MS. SHAGRIN: We struggled over 5 every word. 6 MS. BUSLIK: Yes. The phone 7 calls that were unbelievable. 8 MR. IVIE: One thing that's clear 9 is that the research that's currently going 10 on to build the media-related UEs is very 11 strong research. It's all done in person. 12 Observation within the household, PPMs, 13 perhaps looking at the equipment. They know 14 a lot of things. They're not looking at MP3 15 players and stuff like that. 16 But the basis for what we're 17 trying to compare our research to is 18 extremely strong. So you can't have a weak 19 process. So we're a bit challenged. This 20 has been a difficult process just because we 21 know the end game is to compare these 22 researches and try to learn incrementally 23 from what Nielsen has done. So it's a 24 challenging process to get it done this way. 25 MS. UYENCO: George, to what 50 1 extent are you including, do you think you 2 can include non-TV set viewers? 3 MR. IVIE: We're not looking at 4 views. We're just asking for presence of the 5 device and whether they use the device in 6 household because we're just trying to 7 estimate the penetration of these devices and 8 see whether we can do that. So we're not 9 trying to measure any usage. Although, we do 10 have a couple of questions where we're saying 11 is this present. And, by the way, do you use 12 it? 13 MS. UYENCO: That would be very 14 helpful. 15 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: Yes. That's 16 important. Because if cord-cutting is 17 happening and it continues to happen if it's 18 happening, the Nielsen sample will not have 19 any way of capturing that. We have to. You 20 know what I'm saying? 21 There could be a TV in the home. 22 But it's not getting used because they don't 23 have a cable subscription anymore. And 24 they're really just watching Hooloo. And 25 we're just wondering how that universe is 51 1 growing. And how we're going to know if it's 2 growing if you're relying on Nielsen's who's 3 only recruiting homes that watch TV to be in 4 the sample, right? How they're tracking it? 5 MR. IVIE: There's a lot about 6 the Nielsen sample that can recover from 7 changes like that. I don't know if you want 8 to get into those details. I'm not defending 9 Nielsen's process. But our process we are 10 trying to build into the question, some 11 certain questions, not everyone. 12 Is this device used? So we're 13 trying to also do that. 14 MS. SHAGRIN: It would be very 15 interesting to be able to look at differences 16 from the Nielsen UE and these UEs. And see 17 if they correlate with the differences that 18 we found between responders and 19 nonresponders. So if we found that 20 nonresponders tend to be more likely to have, 21 I'll make this up, an HD TV set. And we 22 found that the RTI data shows more HD TV sets 23 than Nielsen. That may relate to that. And 24 maybe something that can go into how you 25 would adjust your UEs. 52 1 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: When we had done 2 research with people who are young 3 professionals, people out of college, out of 4 grad school, they're living on their own. 5 They're actually not in their parents' home 6 and they don't have a TV. And they only 7 watch TV online. And we don't know how many 8 there are of them. And we have, and I'm just 9 trying to figure out how we're going, how an 10 industry can track that. 11 MS. UYENCO: That same behavior 12 is very heavily done in college campuses. 13 Now, I'm just wondering, are you 14 doing anything at all in regards to 15 reporting? 16 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: Those aren't 17 homes. 18 MR. IVIE: We don't have any 19 project designed to recover in those areas. 20 MR. DONATO: Obviously there's an 21 upper limit. And that's less than 2 percent. 22 Because TV penetration is over 90 percent. 23 But it could skew younger. So, you know, it 24 could be more significant against younger 25 homes. 53 1 I think ultimately what will 2 happen is the definition of a TV household 3 will change. As you know, we started to put 4 Internet meters in our TV households. And I 5 don't know when it will be, but to the extent 6 that the computer and the TV converge at some 7 point, we'll be recruiting. 8 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: Video 9 households. 10 MR. DONATO: Video households. 11 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: Right. And I 12 think it's completely possible that it is 13 only 2 percent because why would you have 14 bothered doing it before? There's really 15 only been a robust enough amount of content 16 online in the past 12 months to consider 17 doing that if you are going to have, if 18 you're somebody that's going to watch TV at 19 all. But there's something in a recent 20 Nielsen Webinar that had no TV, but broadband 21 moving from 3.2 percent to 3.9 percent in the 22 past 15 months or so. So that sounds like 23 it's higher than 2. 24 MR. DONATO: Yes. Well, 3.9. 25 Let me find out what that number is, okay? 54 1 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: Okay. 2 MR. DONATO: Michael, do you 3 remember, I think TV is still almost like 4 98.7. 5 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: It's just a 6 really important issue. Because as a cable 7 company we get a robust amount of our 8 refusers from cable ops. And cable operators 9 are sort of, you know, they're sort of on 10 both sides of the coin. They're saying 11 there's no cord-cutting. But they're furious 12 with anybody at the cable company that does 13 get revenues from an operator that's putting 14 in content online. And that there's just all 15 kinds of issues attached to being able to -- 16 I have absolutely no way to prove that it's 17 not happening. There's no universes to 18 track. There's no single source data to 19 convince them that it's not a zero sum game. 20 All that kind of thing. 21 MR. DONATO: Okay. We know it's 22 an important issue. And we know at a certain 23 point in time we're going to have to have 24 some training, the definition from TV 25 households to video households. 55 1 MR. IVIE: One thing you can do, 2 I know it's a little off-track, Mr. Chairman, 3 you might want to attack it from a different 4 angle. Like we're working on a project with 5 Nielsen online to actually track Census 6 measurement of streams and Internet usage. 7 You know, at the site level, 8 clean that data and then compare it to 9 measures that come out of panels like the 10 Nielsen online panel and perhaps a 11 convergence panel. So you could test the 12 goodness of that data using the actual Census 13 of the streams that might be occurring or 14 who's watching things. 15 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: It doesn't 16 capture the work streaming. So we know a lot 17 of economic stream next day. There are 18 things like The Daley Show. Things like 19 that. We find that no data set is providing 20 a complete survey answer. 21 Just last week, Nielsen Online, 22 they're making their manual much more robust, 23 which should make some of their other linked 24 products stronger. But also the convergence 25 panel for lower-rated cable networks, it's 56 1 just not robust enough to make any kind of 2 conclusions from. And it doesn't include the 3 work viewing so... 4 MS. BUSLIK: You have the new 5 things like confidential -- what they're 6 trying to offer now -- TV shows if you 7 subscribe. So this is a great study test 8 starting out. But it probably because it's 9 started now, we're starting at the right 10 time. It took us long to get here. But I 11 think the timing may have been fortunate. 12 MR. DONATO: I don't remember 13 whether Online measures whether people have 14 TVs or not. But if we can measure whether 15 it's a TV household, given the fact that this 16 is a respondent and not somebody in the 17 house, then it would be interesting to look 18 at their behavior and what it is for the TV 19 Council. I'll make a note of it. 20 MR. HESS: Now that we have the 21 experience of the VCM behind us, do you 22 think, George, speaking for the group or 23 anybody else who wants to chime in, do you 24 think this study will, say, become sort of a 25 new gold standard. Because you mentioned a 57 1 lot of items there that I know are being 2 tracked independently. Like we have other 3 information on DVRs and so on, not just by 4 Nielsen, but Forrester sets. So do you see 5 the comprehensiveness of this, to give us 6 sort of a VCM like, you know, new empirical 7 starting point or how big is it? 8 MR. IVIE: That's a good 9 question. When I first started into this I 10 was thinking we might be able to develop 11 that. But I think realism has set in. And 12 I'm not sure that we're going to do this 13 enumeration study and say, well, this is what 14 we should be doing from now on. 15 I think the likely occurrence is 16 that we're going to find pieces of 17 information in this study that we can 18 transport, you know, with the help of Beth's 19 group or Michael Link or somebody to help 20 improve Nielsen's processes. But I don't 21 think we're going to build a gold standard. 22 I thought we might be able to do that. But I 23 think it's just too challenging and expensive 24 to do it independently outside right now. 25 MS. BUSLIK: Okay. 58 1 MR. IVIE: That's my current 2 opinion. 3 MS. BUSLIK: But I think it 4 becomes the gold standard for what's 5 happening at the time we're doing it. I 6 think the problem is it's a moving target. 7 And whatever things we come up with, because 8 the technology is changing so quickly. 9 So I think in some respects it is 10 a gold standard because it's all in one. 11 It's not someone just measuring just one 12 thing. Someone else measuring another aspect 13 of the new technology. So I think that you 14 can consider that a gold standard. And 15 that's what it is comprehensively. 16 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: Are you 17 comparing the date from the enumeration in 18 Dallas to like the enumeration that Nielsen 19 does for just Dallas? 20 And is that a similar process 21 done at the local level as for the national 22 level? Is it a completely differently 23 trained recruiting force or membership force? 24 MR. DONATO: The same. 25 MS. BUSLIK: The same. 59 1 MR. IVIE: The same process. 2 Yes. I mean, it's difficult. We don't have 3 a standard of truth here. I mean, exactly. 4 We're going to be doing a study to compare to 5 a study. There are challenges here. But I 6 think the goal is we spent a lot of time on 7 these questions. There's been some good 8 thinking in here. I think there's going to 9 be learning to try to adjust and perhaps 10 suggestions to speed Nielsen's process in 11 gathering this information over and above 12 what they have. I think those would be big 13 wins for us. 14 MR. HESS: George, the reason I 15 raise the point is because maybe this will 16 come up in one of the other committee 17 meetings. But it's pretty obvious to me now, 18 having presented the VCM internally and 19 having attended presentations as well, that 20 there's at least two good outcomes for the 21 work that we're doing. 22 One is, yes, it leads to a 23 committee that Beth is heading up that's 24 going to improve Nielsen processes. But 25 second, to the extent that the data 60 1 represents in the VCM case the only really 2 comprehensive tying together of all this 3 information, I know people, I and others are 4 now using it to address myths or untruths or 5 whatever. 6 Like when people say, you know, a 7 simple example, oh, yeah, anybody over 30 8 doesn't multitask. Well, now we have data 9 that it does. And the same thing with 10 television. I think somebody who I won't 11 refer to by name, come on, Mike. Nobody 12 under 25 watches TV. Especially, guys. And 13 now we have data that that's not true. 14 And so what I liked about it and 15 I think what a lot of our colleagues like 16 about it is it represents even if we don't 17 call it a gold standard, it's a point in time 18 measure that allows us to go empirical. 19 Where other people are going anecdotal or 20 mythologic. And I like that a lot. That's 21 an outcome that maybe we didn't anticipate. 22 I don't know. Certainly we're going to use 23 it for Nielsen purposes. But I really like 24 that. 25 So to the extent that whether 61 1 universe estimates end up being the final 2 gold standard or not, may not matter. I 3 think initially just said that, hey, it's 4 going to be a point in time. It will be a 5 good number. And I think that empirical 6 value to the industry is a really good thing. 7 And I think that the scope across 8 all the different types of media-related 9 equipment and whatever behavior that we're 10 trying to get to is pretty unique. So a 11 measurement of that at a point in time across 12 these households using a strong technique of 13 in-person recruitment, that does bring new 14 information to the table. 15 MR. SUSSMAN: Not to go beyond 16 Nielsen to other research companies in the 17 industry. 18 MS. BURNS: Hi. Joanne here. 19 MR. SUSSMAN: So this goes beyond 20 if we're doing a model that's beyond just 21 television and video to every electronic in 22 the home practically. It seems like it has 23 implications crossing the street for others 24 who don't have any estimates. 25 MR. LINK: One implication, to 62 1 some degree, it's tied back to the consumer 2 mapping study as well, finding in. There are 3 very clearly some questions that people are 4 going to have difficulty with. And will be 5 able to, I think, really identify where 6 people just don't know. And that kind of 7 place. 8 Same thing with the super mapping 9 where there seems to be this big disconnect 10 between self reports and observe reports. 11 Kind of the same thing here. Did raise a 12 number of questions about those studies out 13 there that rely on just self reports for some 14 of this information. 15 MR. DONATO: The estimates of DVR 16 penetration three years ago, we doubled. DVR 17 penetration was about 12 percent. Other 18 companies reported 40 percent. Because you 19 asked everyone do you have a DVR. And maybe 20 they didn't know what it is. Maybe they're 21 starting to know what it is now. 22 MS. COWAN: HD has been a very 23 similar challenge, defining it and 24 understanding it's actually hooked up. 25 MR. DONATO: So many moving parts 63 1 to people. 2 MR. LINK: Now that we have this, 3 the transition, everybody has HD, right? 4 MR. STERN: I think the most 5 interesting thing about the VCM study, my 6 experience presenting internally is that 7 people believe it. You know. And I didn't 8 really -- I expected a lot more people to 9 question it. But they might ask some 10 questions, but they go away believing that 11 that's good data. And I think that's very 12 important. 13 MR. WACHSLAG: Yes. It's worked 14 very well in the same way for me at Turner. 15 MR. ZACKON: Hi Jack. 16 MR. WACHSLAG: Thanks. 17 MR. HESS: Any other discussion 18 on UE? 19 MR. IVIE: Do we need to close 20 the loop with the audit aspect of this? Is 21 there anything we need to do? 22 MR. ZACKON: Yes -- no, that's 23 fine. Let me report. 24 Nancy Gallagher, in her 25 prescience, was wise enough to put in some 64 1 extra money in the budget with the Council 2 past and that money, about $10,000. I think 3 25,000 extra. And about 10,000 is the fee 4 for an audit from Ernst & Young. 5 So, in respect of full 6 disclosure, it's already been voted through 7 by the Council, but was not part of RTC's 8 initial bid. So I don't think any formal 9 action is required here. But if anyone here 10 thinks that was a really stupid thing to do, 11 here's your chance to speak up. So we have 12 the money. So we don't need to get 13 additional funding for it. But people should 14 know that's what occurred. 15 MR. HESS: We don't need to vote 16 on that at this point. 17 MR. ZACKON: Michael, Michael? 18 MR. HESS: Richard, it's Michael. 19 I'm back on. 20 MR. ZACKON: Welcome back, 21 Michael. 22 MR. HESS: Thank you, George. 23 Anything else on UE? 24 Otherwise, we'll move on. I know 25 a topic that's been active of late. Set-top 65 1 boxes, including yesterday. 2 MR. ZACKON: Thank you, George, 3 by the way, for filling in for Nancy. 4 MR. IVIE: No problem. 5 MR. HESS: So yesterday there was 6 actually a section or two at the ARF 4.0 on 7 this hot topic. And so those of us who are 8 there can't wait to hear more, Beth. 9 MS. LIGUORI: I wish I was there 10 at the second budget meeting. Set-top box 11 committee. As you know, we're looking to 12 obtain learning about the operation of the 13 set-top box as a tool to measure television 14 tuning. 15 Just to restate our purpose. And 16 when we last met we were at the point of 17 finalizing a questionnaire and putting it 18 into the field. That was in March. The 19 questionnaire has been in the field. So most 20 of April and May has been spent encouraging 21 participation among the various players; the 22 aggregators, the owners, the processes, et 23 cetera, et cetera. And there's been 24 tremendous concern about confidentiality of 25 the data. There's tremendous competition out 66 1 there among the players, that they fear their 2 information will get in the hands of the 3 others. Their competition. And in order to, 4 there's been a lot of cajoling, and Mike Hess 5 has been very, very helpful. Where did he 6 go? 7 MR. HESS: I heard my name. 8 MR. ZACKON: He's being helpful 9 right now. 10 MS. LIGUORI: Without him, I 11 don't think we'd be at the point that we're 12 at. Which is, we have 13 yeses and, I 13 believe, nine undecideds and eight no's. And 14 those no's, you should know we're not 15 accepting them as final no's. We believe 16 some of them may be able to be converted 17 after we get a critical mass of participants. 18 And we can say, well, we have this one, that 19 one, the other one. 20 So, Mike, the ARF has been 21 speaking with people. We also sent out a 22 benefits letter to people advising them. 23 They said, basically, they said what's in it 24 for me. Why should I participate. And what 25 we came up with is that they're going to 67 1 interact with the brightest minds in this 2 industry by interacting with the CRE. And 3 that there will be tremendous awareness of 4 their company's role and product and 5 involvement in set-top boxes. 6 And lastly, that right now there 7 isn't one place to get information about 8 set-top boxes. The three various players 9 have their own things. They're pitching 10 their own. They're trashing their 11 competition. But to give as broad a piece of 12 the industry accurate, basic information, 13 there really isn't one place to go. 14 So Mike sent those letters out. 15 And, again, tremendous thank you's for his 16 jumping in and helping us. There's the chart 17 in your packet which is a status sheet of 18 older people that we've sent to the yeses are 19 there. We have some question marks. The 20 no's are there. The undecideds are there. 21 And it's, you know, I hesitated 22 to put this out because of the sensitivity of 23 the companies that, you know, some felt that 24 there aren't enough players in their category 25 where their information could be masked so 68 1 that they wouldn't be giving out competitive 2 secrets to their competitors. 3 But just so you know, some of 4 those who are undecided are basically waiting 5 until X player, Y player and Z player comes 6 in. We've got, the only one who flatly 7 refuses at this point is AT&T. That's Spring 8 Forrester. It's unfortunate that he's at 9 AT&T. But it's not surprising that he 10 refused because of what he does. And others, 11 you know, they're checking with legal. They 12 may give us portions of it, which is fine. 13 We'll take what we can get. We just don't 14 want a blanket no without them at least 15 contributing something to the study. And 16 others were just waiting to hear back. And 17 that's where we are. 18 MR. ZACKON: Pat, would it make 19 sense if people just reviewed this list if 20 they know somewhere there that we not have 21 already reached out to have a relationship 22 there. 23 MS. LIGUORI: That would help. 24 MR. ZACKON: I reached out 25 yesterday. I said something at the panel at 69 1 the ARF then privately reached out to let's 2 just say a former member of this Council 3 currently working for one of these providers 4 who agreed to reconsider. So I think we're 5 prudent not to take a no as a permanent no. 6 MS. LIGUORI: Yes, definitely. 7 If your arms can be as long as Mike's, that 8 would be very helpful. 9 MR. ZACKON: Mike's out of the 10 room. Ira, you're acting chair once again. 11 So do we have any other questions on set-top 12 boxes or comments? 13 MR. WACHSLAG: The question would 14 be about companies which we cooperate. 15 Companies that have told us no. If we go 16 ahead and produce a report, which eventually 17 we will, one of the disadvantages of saying 18 no is you'll be listed as a no. 19 MS. LIGUORI: That's true. 20 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: However, we'll 21 be sending that message when we're trying to 22 convince them. 23 MS. LIGUORI: I don't think it's 24 come to that discussion yet. Because some of 25 those, again, some of those who have said no. 70 1 Said it when we had nobody who have said yes. 2 It was early on. So we think some of those 3 can be persuaded when they see that their 4 competition is in there. 5 MR. SUSSMAN: I think we have an 6 opportunity to go back to probably some of 7 the reasons each of them said no might be 8 different. And we might be able to help 9 persuade them. 10 MS. BUSLIK: There's also so much 11 publicity about participating in other 12 studies and working together. And we you 13 know this issue where. And I think that's 14 what's so important about us keeping at it in 15 public with as much studies as we are doing, 16 is that we're really there to work for them 17 and with them. I mean, I know I've seen some 18 of these presentations when I finish, I keep 19 saying will you work with us. And maybe 20 these people need an education about what the 21 CRE is. 22 MR. STERNBERG: Do we know if any 23 of the people that are not participating in 24 this are participating in Mitchell Osgood's 25 Collaborative Alliance Advertising. 71 1 MS. LIGUORI: So some of them are 2 absolutely. But, again, as I said, some of 3 the nonparticipants TiVo. For instance, they 4 E-mailed that their attorneys advised them 5 not to. However, I think when they find out 6 that there are others like Cablevision and 7 Comcast, et cetera, et cetera, when those 8 people come in, I think TiVo might 9 reconsider, because then they'll be left out. 10 MS. UYENCO: Is it worth trying 11 to see what workarounds might be? I haven't 12 worked -- I completely understand how legal 13 can come down and shut you down, even when 14 you have the best intentions. Is there a way 15 that -- do we understand what the reasons 16 for these legal pushbacks are? 17 MS. LIGUORI: Yes. We've had the 18 consultants. And Richardand Mike and I had a 19 couple of conference calls. We'll probably 20 have a few more with some of the players. 21 TNS will probably have another one with 22 Jason. Where is he? 23 MR. HESS: He responded to that 24 letter already. 25 MS. LIGUORI: We're having 72 1 one-on-one conversations to assure them that 2 Nielsen is not going to see the data. That's 3 a major concern. That even the committee 4 members aren't going to see the data. It's 5 only the three consultants who'll see it. 6 The questionnaires will be 7 destroyed. There have been requests for 8 NDAs, which the consultants have agreed to. 9 So, yes, we are addressing them individually 10 to find out what -- that's how we put 11 together the benefit statement. That was 12 actually TNS said, you know, was the first 13 one to say what's in it for me. I need a 14 benefit statement. So that he, in turn, can 15 clear things. 16 MR. LINK: I guess where the 17 Nielsen issue has come up, we tried to have 18 our legal department provide whatever 19 information to say that Nielsen's not going 20 to have this data. 21 MR. DONATO: I think you have it 22 all wrong. If you think about it, Nielsen's 23 funding an entity which brings to them the 24 most senior of their clients in the industry. 25 They got the whole thing backwards. 73 1 MS. BUSLIK: They like to divide 2 and conquer. To hear their presentation, 3 it's very difficult. 4 MR. STERN: Why would Johnson say 5 no? 6 MS. LIGUORI: Because they're not 7 producing anything at this time. And Kanu, 8 they really don't have anything to put into. 9 They can't answer anything. Because they're 10 not providing anything at this point. So 11 that's why those were no's. 12 MS. BUSLIK: I really think 13 they're the tail end. We really need to get 14 at the first aggregators. That's much more 15 important. 16 MR. HESS: Okay. Thank you. No 17 other questions? Pat, thanks for the hard 18 work. 19 MS. LIGUORI: Thank you. 20 MR. HESS: Appreciate it. I'm 21 glad I could help as well. We're two things. 22 Let's move on to Insights to Practice. Can't 23 wait for Beth's update on that. And then 24 second, we have located Shari. So Beth, 25 proceed. 74 1 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: Is she okay? 2 MR. HESS: Yes. I'll let her 3 explain. Beth, it says ten minutes on here. 4 If you take fifteen it will be okay. 5 MS. UYENCO: Might I take it 6 slowly? 7 MR. HESS: Shari might be here in 8 15 minutes from here. 9 MR. KALINE: It's Mark Kaline. I 10 just wanted you to know I joined the call. 11 Sorry I'm late. 12 MR. ZACKON: Good to have you 13 back. 14 MS. UYENCO: I think we have 15 slides. 16 MR. DONATO: Do we have slides? 17 MR. HESS: You're waiting for 18 slides, I see. 19 MS. UYENCO: So, for the first 20 time anybody's actually seen anything from 21 the Insights to Practice. Frustrated art 22 director. So this is an agreed upon charter 23 for the Insights to Practice and its duly 24 formed Nielsen Company Research practices 25 product services. Practical learning from 75 1 all of the CRE studies. So any questions 2 about that as we stated it? Okay. 3 This is the membership. Actually 4 it's a unique committee in the sense that in 5 the sense that half of its composition is of 6 CRE members and the other half are composed 7 of key Nielsen individuals who have 8 particular expertise in supervision within 9 Nielsen. And as you can see from this list, 10 it also includes people who are not 11 necessarily just television. So, for 12 instance, you have -- 13 A VOICE: Can you get closer to a 14 mic? Is that possible? 15 MS. UYENCO: In this case, as you 16 see Manoch's name there and Manoch is in with 17 the online service. So that's the 18 composition. These are some of the -- so in 19 our meeting, our last meeting on June 4th, we 20 went and we reviewed with everybody from 21 Nielsen the research projects that have been 22 done since CRE's beginning. So there was a 23 marketplace practice which is given on 24 overview. Of course, the VCM. The response 25 bias and nonresponse bias. The set-top box 76 1 and activities. And the media-related 2 universe estimates. 3 The ones that are checked are the 4 ones that are probably the most, we've deemed 5 as the most immediate that we will be 6 concentrating our efforts on. So that would 7 be VCM and the nonresponse. These were some 8 of the questions now from that we had raised 9 with VCM. 10 This is a list. I apologize. I 11 didn't have this in the handouts. I'm a 12 newbie. I didn't realize I was supposed to 13 send it out beforehand. So I'll let you read 14 this. 15 The first is the whole idea of 16 tracking multiscreen usage. So we would like 17 to understand more about the patterns of 18 behavior within the current panel versus the 19 convergence panel. And there's a lot of 20 learning that could be had. And the more 21 minor points outline some of the types of 22 analysis that we would like to do. But we 23 would like to see comparing currency panel 24 and convergence. 25 The second is about multitasking 77 1 behavior and the impact of attentiveness and 2 stickiness to the content. 3 The third is the impact of 4 muting. And then fourth, out-of-home video. 5 Well, I should also say that part 6 of one of the challenges, a big challenge of 7 VCM is that there's a lot of other -- there's 8 a whole host of items that the VCM folks 9 would like to pursue. So I'm not ignoring 10 them. I'm just trying. What I did was tried 11 to sort of bucket things in a way that would 12 make sense and also allow Nielsen to better 13 manage and wrap their arms around the list 14 that came out of VCM. 15 MR. SUSSMAN: Beth, what's the 16 end game? What is the next step? These are 17 topics; not really questions. 18 So muting impact, what does that 19 mean? 20 MS. UYENCO: Well -- 21 MR. SUSSMAN: So Nielsen is going 22 to provide some information from their sample 23 about what happens next? 24 MS. UYENCO: This was something 25 that came out of the list. So I'm going to 78 1 let Shari -- originally. Yes. Originally, I 2 would expect that Shari would have gone 3 before me. So that she would provide the 4 group with a lot more. 5 MR. SUSSMAN: So this isn't 6 directly from the Insights to Practice, what 7 would impact Nielsen. 8 MS. UYENCO: Right. To our 9 charter it's taking in all the things that 10 come out as follow-up items from the work 11 that different committees have done. Setting 12 priorities and then relating them to Nielsen. 13 MR. SUSSMAN: Got it. 14 MS. UYENCO: Then trying to 15 coordinate. What the committee will do is 16 try to coordinate to align some of our common 17 interests, okay. 18 MS. UYENCO: What you should be 19 seeing here is a slide from Nielsen then. 20 Michael, this was your slide, okay. Slide A. 21 Got it. That's what I want. Okay. There we 22 go. And this was a slide stolen from Michael 23 who then provided us an overview of some of 24 the things that they've already started to 25 look at from their side of the table. 79 1 MR. LINK: Let me give, this is 2 probably a good point to state, yes, we had 3 Steve all ready to go. Then Steve is going 4 back to Discovery so... but Steve's folks are 5 still there. Steve's two analysts are still 6 there, thank goodness. So the way this, I'm 7 going to confess, this has been a painfully 8 slow process. I've been somewhat aggravated 9 by the sense that it's 100 days since we've 10 had that essential press conference. And 11 nobody seems to have gotten out of the gate 12 yet with this. 13 Almost, like Paul was saying. 14 We're trying really to ratchet things up, to 15 get things moving here, but internally at 16 Nielsen. Now, we do have set-up with Ball 17 State. We're getting the contract finalized. 18 But we have a statement of work from Ball 19 State who, Michael, at least one of the 20 Michaels will come down to probably our Tampa 21 facility. And is going to do a one-day 22 training just on going through the details of 23 the data sets. 24 We have analysts set up, two 25 analysts under Patrick McDonough who Steve 80 1 reported to. We have several analysts who 2 are in Christine Pearson's group. Actually 3 our demographer. And I have actually several 4 people I'm going to assign. And also when 5 Shari gets here she'll tell you about the 6 resources that she's going to ask you all 7 for. And that individual is certainly 8 welcome to join us. 9 But we're going to have them come 10 down and do a day-long walking through the 11 data from an analyst's perspective that says, 12 okay, we've all pulled up the data circuits. 13 We've all gone through them. How did you 14 roll this up? How did you actually do this? 15 How did you come up with these charts? Once 16 we get that out of the way, then things will 17 move much, much faster. We have kind of the 18 laundry list of things internally that we 19 know we want to look at. Because they will 20 affect what we do, the out-of-home things. 21 In terms of the muting, we're 22 very much interested in looking at what we 23 can learn about muting. And then look at our 24 own data to see kind of what's going on 25 there. Those types of things. 81 1 And then actually getting beyond 2 just the TV, we're very interested in the 3 radio and the online youth in particular type 4 of kind of the multitasking with the online. 5 Lookng at those types of things as well. 6 It's taken a lot to get us to this point, 7 where we actually have some analysts that 8 you'll actually use the data. 9 I don't know if anyone here's 10 seen it. It requires a somewhat complicated 11 process to get this done right. We're 12 finally at the point we've got the right 13 people. We can move forward. We'll get the 14 training. And then we'll start seeing some 15 results that we can actually put into real 16 practice. 17 And Beth, what you were kind of 18 getting to, Ira, we don't actually have a 19 learning that we can translate into an action 20 yet. We've got to find that, raise some 21 questions. And you need to dig a little bit 22 deeper to say, okay, how do we get some kind 23 of actionable items out of this and how. 24 MR. SUSSMAN: Or what's the next 25 stage? What do we really need to do? 82 1 MR. LINK: There's two things. 2 You don't want to learn things, leave it. Go 3 on to the next question, okay. 4 What's the action of what comes 5 out of what we have found? While you are 6 doing that, then another set of questions 7 that follow up, obviously right behind it. 8 We're going to try to keep up with both. 9 MR. DONATO: Michael, so I 10 understood you, client analysts that will be 11 working with this data will be invited to 12 Tampa Bay also. 13 MR. LINK: Absolutely, 14 absolutely, absolutely. 15 MR. DONATO: And the format is -- 16 MR. LINK: The data set used at 17 Ball State, half of our analysts use SPSS. 18 We have converted it to SAS. 19 Actually, Steve Singer who looks 20 like if the Council approves, we actually 21 approved everything to Excel for them. I 22 think that I'm going to limit it to that. 23 Because it takes like five hours for these 24 data sets to run and convert. 25 Bottom line is you really want to 83 1 know somebody who knows how to use SAS; a 2 real analyst that can do those types of 3 things. 4 MS. UYENCO: So I think as 5 progressive Insights to Practice, you'll see 6 this style of something that's checked are 7 things that Nielsen is already addressing. 8 MR. LINK: At the top of the 9 list. 10 MS. UYENCO: And then the ones -- 11 MR. LINK: Exactly. 12 MS. UYENCO: -- are other areas 13 of investigation that have yet to get 14 started. But are of great interest. And of 15 course we invite the comments from the 16 Council as to how important some of these 17 other topics might be, okay. 18 This actually came from Ceril. 19 So I don't have to go into this. These were 20 the further analyses. Some of the questions 21 that came up from the work of the nonresponse 22 study. And this is where Nielsen is. The 23 work that they're doing that's relevant to 24 this. So the key areas of inquiry that 25 Michael has identified are, this again is not 84 1 ranked, but those are the specific points of 2 analysis. 3 MR. LINK: And on this particular 4 project we actually are moving well down the 5 path. Because obviously Scott Bell has done 6 the analysis for us from the beginning. So 7 his team has been working through these 8 various particular issues. And a lot of them 9 overlap with what Ceril was talking about. 10 There are other aspects that have not been 11 looked at yet or we're looking at them in a 12 multi-variety approach rather than the cross 13 frequency cross tab. So we have more on that 14 that we'll be able to share with the 15 committee, and hopefully, with the Council. 16 MS. UYENCO: So other issues, 17 again, responding to initiatives that the CRE 18 is heading up, universe estimates, studies in 19 progress, and storage, and set-top boxes. We 20 have no engagement at this point with Nielsen 21 because of the nature of work. And then what 22 we've cited is that Nielsen would share also 23 its perspective regarding emerging media. 24 But the most immediate, the next 25 action step was telling us, identifying for 85 1 the CRE what changes have been made, are 2 being considered and rejected of all the 3 things that have come out of the work that 4 we've done. And so that's why we have this 5 one item in today's agenda which is what Paul 6 and Michael will be talking about after. 7 Now, after Ceril's presentation, right? 8 MR. HESS: Good timing. 9 MS. UYENCO: And the other 10 possible research that we had discussed was 11 cross platform. The feasibility of 12 psychographic segmentation, passive 13 measurement, and data integration fusion. 14 So that's it. Anything else? 15 Any other comment? 16 MR. DONATO: My only comment is 17 so we're having a training for client 18 analyst. Do we need to come to a conclusion 19 about what the data access policy is for VCM? 20 MR. HESS: I think, again, the 21 answer is yes. And I believe it will be 22 covered to some extent in new business. And 23 to some extent by what Shari's going to talk 24 about. 25 MR. DONATO: I'd like to hear 86 1 your suggestions first. We have a point of 2 view. But I'd like to hear your suggestions 3 first. 4 MR. HESS: Okay. Right now I 5 guess I would divide. I'll just take your 6 question on directly rather than deferring to 7 Shari as she settles in. 8 I think there's two broad areas 9 of follow-up of data access if you will. The 10 one Shari's going to talk about is, let's 11 say, high level, that the entire committee 12 agrees is 10 great follow-up questions that 13 require analysis. 14 Then the other type I believe I 15 talked to you one-on-one. And that is what 16 if a client, Nielsen client wants to -- I'm 17 pausing. 18 MR. DONATO: I was processing 19 neither at the moment. 20 MS. BUSLIK: Multitasking. 21 MR. HESS: I was on the second 22 opinion. The other point that has surfaced 23 is with the widespread as we just heard, that 24 this data is seen as plausible. You know, 25 nobody's challenging it. At the same time, 87 1 great application and so on. Just the 2 opportunity for ad hoc, not at the committee 3 level, but the client. Literally a client 4 saying how can we access this. So I think 5 those are the two broad areas. 6 MR. DONATO: And the clients as 7 all clients are not U.S. CRE members, 8 correct? 9 MR. HESS: You can help us with 10 this. I saw it as all Nielsen clients. All 11 Nielsen clients, not just CRE. 12 MR. DONATO: I think that in 13 order to get the maximum utility out of the 14 survey and accept, since the survey has a lot 15 more value than it will if a year from now, I 16 would think we should give access to any 17 Nielsen client. And it would be cases where 18 a nonclient might have access to it. But I 19 think both you and we ought to agree upon 20 that. 21 So if a nonprofit was doing some 22 research and we agreed it would be a good 23 thing to provide access, then that's 24 perfectly good. I would like it not to be 25 just open, you know, obviously, so that 88 1 competitors would then use it for their 2 products. I don't think that's fair. 3 MR. LINK: When you say "access," 4 because this has gone back and forth, one way 5 to do this, the most complete way to do this 6 is we package essentially a DVD that has the 7 data. The data sets. And whatever limited. 8 And it has limited coding information on 9 there. And you get a nondisclosure 10 agreement, and boom, you get the CD. You 11 have the data. That's the complete solution. 12 We have several, you know, quite 13 a few actual organizations that would like to 14 do that. To date we kind of hesitated on 15 that. And said, well, there are rolled up 16 tables that people can access, the question 17 becomes, because I share, I'm getting to the 18 point where I would like to just put it out. 19 MR. HESS: I would rather save 20 this. Now we're getting into technical 21 details, DVDs, and so on. Let's save that. 22 MR. LINK: But it is. When you 23 say "share the data," what does share the 24 data mean? That's always been the -- 25 MR. HESS: I'm just saying I'd 89 1 like to cover that topic later. Because I 2 think we will learn a lot when we hear Shari 3 go through what she wants to cover. I had 4 shared the data on an ad hoc basis under new 5 business. I'd be willing to move that up if 6 it's practical. Maybe to piggyback right at 7 the end. I'm definitely not trying to push 8 it away. We have it scheduled in a way that 9 we can get to it. And then if it requires 10 extensive discussion we will. 11 MR. LINK: Okay. Shari. 12 MR. HESS: Now, did Shari just 13 leave? 14 MS. BRILL: No. Hi. For those 15 of you that don't know, I guess eating is 16 fundamental. And I went by the original 17 agenda. 18 MR. WACHSLAG: Get you closer to 19 a mic. 20 MR. HESS: Shari is about to 21 present. 22 MS. BRILL: Sorry about that 23 folks. I actually went to the wrong address. 24 And getting here now. And happy to be here. 25 So welcome everyone. And just to update you 90 1 on what's happening with the media 2 consumption and engagement committee, there's 3 been a lot of activity. 4 First of all, I don't know how 5 many of you have been to the research 6 excellent website. But we've posted a 7 multitude of presentations that have been 8 given at various venues. And also we have 9 supplemental information. We recently posted 10 a digital appendix which has wonderful data 11 sets that is available for the public to 12 access. 13 In addition to that, we also have 14 these wonderful data tables that can help 15 answer many of the common questions that are 16 being raised. We have chosen I thought it 17 best that these data tables be limited to 18 Nielsen clients only. And we are currently 19 seeking a means to have that information 20 posted in a Nielsen client members-only area. 21 Maybe something that could be linked to as 22 part of the regular Nielsen client log that's 23 used for the website. Use the same log-in 24 and password. And then there'd be a CRE 25 members Nielsen client-only area. And then 91 1 they could access not only the data tables, 2 but some technical information which we also 3 have prepared. 4 MR. LINK: Shari, just on that 5 point that we made considerable progress on 6 that, that you would log into the Nielsen 7 client site and there'd be just a link there. 8 We'll tie you to a client site on the CRE 9 site. The link's not working yet. It's in 10 process. 11 MR. DONATO: You're proposing 12 access just to the data table, not the raw 13 data? 14 MS. BRILL: Yes. For now. The 15 tables and also some additional technical 16 information, you know. For example, the Big 17 5 Personality study and additional 18 supplemental information that was put 19 together. 20 MR. DONATO: For clients we'd be 21 willing to share the raw data. But with your 22 judgment, if you want to talk more about 23 that... 24 MR. HESS: This is a little bit 25 of a tag team. I didn't mean to artificially 92 1 separate it when I talked to Richard. We 2 thought that Shari had enough to cover from a 3 committee perspective that I was going to 4 keep the other topic on new business. I'll 5 just surface it now, okay, and let Shari keep 6 going. 7 But you guys know where I'm going 8 to go, is this: Not to necessarily recommend 9 raw data. Although, I'm not opposed to that. 10 But we weren't going to recommend that. But 11 rather some ad hoc way to get in sort of, 12 again, Shari's going to say or is saying 13 there's ten or eleven things. Let's process 14 it, et cetera, from a committee perspective. 15 But what if a client says I'd 16 like to break out gender or I'd like to drill 17 down into one of the demo groups. And that 18 client doesn't want to wait until the next 19 committee session where we agree on ten more? 20 That's what we want to get at on an ad hoc 21 basis. It's not the same as saying give us 22 the raw data so the client can do it. 23 MR. LINK: Right. 24 MR. HESS: But rather, one 25 metaphorical way we phrased it was name 93 1 somebody brand manager of the ad hoc research 2 analysis company. That will do that. And 3 what that process is is one that probably 4 needs discussion. Because I don't have an 5 outline for that I wanted to first discuss it 6 like, hey, is that something we want to do. 7 I feel pretty strongly it is. By I think 8 that deserved its own venue of discussion. 9 Again, I can piggyback it. But that's where 10 we're going to go. 11 Does that help? 12 MR. SUSSMAN: I think the one 13 thing that we had a hesitation on. I see you 14 wanted to put it out there. Which is great. 15 The hesitation is that it is a complicated 16 database. I don't think anybody that can 17 really dispute what is already produced on 18 those tables. So I think it would be really 19 confusing for the marketplace. Here's how I 20 ran date. And I have a data that 21 counterparts what you put along. 22 MR. DONATO: You can operate with 23 the understanding that we're willing to go as 24 far as you recommend. And that includes raw 25 data reference tables, or whatever. We're 94 1 only interested in getting the community to 2 have the maximum utility out of the data. 3 MS. BUSLIK: Just that if the 4 data is just given out as raw data, there are 5 sample size issues. And I think those need 6 to be controlled. Because without those the 7 data can be completely misinterpreted or 8 misused. So I think it needs a lot of 9 control. Not just letting out the raw data. 10 MR. ZACKON: That's a new offer. 11 And thank you on behalf of the CRE on making 12 those data available. They had not 13 previously been mailed available. 14 MS. SIRKIN: This is Kate. And 15 most people know that I have been asking for 16 reference access to the data. And, thank 17 you, Paul. I think I was looking to here. 18 We do have experts at DSS Excel. And, you 19 know, I would love to have access to that 20 data to be able to provide insight, further 21 insight for Nielsen clients and SAS clients. 22 I understand the challenges of 23 making sure that there's a quality control 24 around it. And I'd love to talk more 25 specifically about how we can do that. In 95 1 addition to having the mic that's spoken 2 about. So I think this would be a variety. 3 Depending on the resources and facilities 4 that each individual company might have and 5 their comfort level in access to that kind of 6 data. 7 MR. HESS: And the main reason, 8 following up on Kate's comments, I was using 9 that brand manager metaphor or research 10 analytic company because, I mean, frankly, I 11 didn't realize, but raw data would actually 12 be available. I thought I saw, I thought I 13 felt that you might want to protect data 14 access and only make it available through a 15 third party. And so that's why, like Kate, 16 I'd be thrilled if we could get raw data 17 access. I think I just wasn't at that point. 18 We're just going to ask you for a way to 19 access it. 20 MS. SHAGRIN: As a sell point, 21 perhaps everybody in this room around the 22 Council would use it in the right way if you 23 open it up to every Nielsen client as raw 24 data without putting some sample size 25 minimums on what you will allow them to run, 96 1 people could and will who aren't as concerned 2 about the quality issue and the sample size 3 issue use it, go out on the street with it. 4 And it ends up discrediting the study because 5 they've misused it. So I think we have to be 6 very careful of that. We don't want to 7 withhold information. But we, I think we 8 want to be careful about, well, too many 9 people having too much detailed access. 10 MR. HESS: So as chair, I'm kind 11 of caught between the discussions here. I 12 mean, I don't mind that we moved ahead to 13 this other topic, because it's obviously 14 relevant. At the same time I'd like Shari to 15 at least get her download out. But it's 16 helpful to know where Paul was willing to go. 17 Obviously, Kate and I now have a different 18 attitude what we might say later. But let's 19 give Shari a chance to do the download. 20 MS. BRILL: It's a very different 21 situation, because I know Mike, especially 22 you and Kate, you're very sophisticated. You 23 have very sophisticated analysis tools. It 24 would be different, you know, at a Cara or 25 StarCom, because we would note the 97 1 limitations of what we're dealing with. But 2 I do want to point out that data tables that 3 are already in everyone's possession, at 4 least at the Council offers some really good 5 information that could help address some of 6 the basic client queries that have been 7 coming up. There is information at the 8 gender level. Granted it's total day. But 9 you can get men and women by age and what 10 their screen usage behavior is. That's 11 already there for the taking. And we are 12 able to provide a lot of information that 13 some of our clients had asked based on those 14 tables alone. 15 Of course, there's deeper 16 information that, you know, if we all stop 17 and think about it. Many of us are asking 18 the same thing. Same types of questions. 19 There may be things that are unique to a 20 given client. But the committee has compiled 21 a group of questions that we all wanted to 22 delve into further the database. And that 23 should be in your packet. There's about 62 24 questions we put together that would probably 25 be pretty commonly asked types of questions 98 1 to delve into that database further. 2 So it would be information that 3 would be of use to the entire Council. And 4 we would have her slides as part of that that 5 we could, you know, also distribute that 6 would be accessible. So what I want to bring 7 up now is we have a proposal that I'm putting 8 before the Council. We are actually 9 reviewing having Steve Singer work with that 10 database to help address some of those 11 queries. 12 As part of his proposal, he'd be 13 working with some analysts at Sequent 14 Partners and also having the guidance of some 15 of the original people who worked on it. 16 They would be overseeing it. But at a very, 17 like, high level. So Bill Moe and Jim Spaeth 18 would be involved, but to a lesser degree. 19 Pretty much just to really oversee the 20 project. And because they're sort of more in 21 the background and Steve Singer would be 22 doing the brunt of the work along with the 23 Sequent analysts, the cost, if you recall, a 24 couple of months ago, we had gotten a 25 proposal from BSU Sequent to do further 99 1 analyses. And it was pretty expensive. If 2 you recall it was $210,000 for their 3 additional work. 4 Well, the work that Steve Singer 5 could do addresses the questions that we've 6 submitted would be about $90,000. So I'm 7 asking for the Committee for the Council, 8 rather for a vote to approve that. But do 9 have tailing on that, because we want to get 10 as much mileage out of the VCM database as 11 much as possible. I also have another 12 outline for you. And it's about using the 13 video consumer mapping study, because it's a 14 time-based study as an essential hub in a 15 fusion analysis. 16 Has anyone had a chance to look 17 at that? 18 MR. SUSSMAN: The touch point 19 part. 20 MR. ZACKON: Assume they have it. 21 And if you can give us a one-minute high 22 level sense of what that is. 23 MS. BRILL: Basically, I don't 24 know if you've heard of the IPA touch points 25 analysis and the fusion work that was done in 100 1 the U.K.. The idea would be to use our 2 observation data as the central hub. And it 3 would be something done through after -- 4 there's what's that committee? 360 Super? 5 MS. SIRKIN: Communications 6 Media Marketing Council. 7 MS. BRILL: Yes. Kate, you're 8 involved in this, right? 9 MS. SIRKIN: Yes. 10 MS. BRILL: Can you fill in a 11 little more how to describe it? 12 MS. SIRKIN: I can. I think what 13 this first asks is if we can have some money 14 through the Council to investigate the 15 ability of this type of data, the hub, the 16 currency databases. We're not saying this is 17 the final hub. We're looking at it as an 18 investigative process to see if this type of 19 data is a good option in the future to look 20 at for hub surveys. 21 There are a number of other 22 time-based or multimedia-type hub options. 23 But this is one that we obviously wanted 24 money on with Nielsen. I think it might 25 provide a good opportunity to do that. 101 1 If you read the piece of paper in 2 more detail, you'll see that Jane Park, she's 3 on both the ARF Council and working with the 4 VCM team. And she has spoken to most of the 5 parties that would need to be involved for 6 the MRIs, the Nielsens, the fusion experts 7 within those companies. And everybody, I 8 think thinks it's a good opportunity to test 9 this idea. Lots of people have other 10 questions to do some work. With that view, I 11 can't give an answer. 12 MR. DONATO: I can give you an 13 update on my conversations because I've had a 14 lot of conversations. In fact, I had the IPA 15 people in my office this morning. I had 16 dinner with them last might. I've spoken 17 with Jane. I think the operative word is to 18 test. 19 MS. BRILL: Yes. Absolutely, a 20 test case. 21 MR. DONATO: There's a lot of 22 issues that I can share with you with respect 23 to the Ball State methodology as being a hub. 24 It's 500 cases and it's six markets. It 25 would be very, very difficult. 102 1 On the other hand, to take the 2 learning, the multimedia, the cross platform 3 learning from that study, there's a 4 possibility that there could be adjustment 5 factors that come out of it that could help 6 the resulting fusion. 7 The IPA and touch points 8 methodology and I had dinner with Cathy Love 9 last night, is basically two parts. One is 10 essentially an MRI kind of study. And the 11 other is an electronic time diary. And so 12 electronic time diary is very interesting. 13 And as I expressed to Bill Moe this morning, 14 we actually have a whole division that I 15 think is actually doing state-of-the-art work 16 in terms of electronic time diaries, using 17 images, et cetera. 18 But there's things that are also 19 very different. I don't want to sound 20 negative because I do think that we need to 21 test what could the incremental fall to 22 fusions by pulling in these new dynamics. 23 Where touch points is used, at least for the 24 moment, I don't think, or in the U.K. right 25 now there is neither a convergence panel nor 103 1 the intent to have television, Internet and 2 then mobile all measured from within the same 3 or like substamp of a panel. 4 It's highly unlikely that a 5 generalized survey is going to do a better 6 job than direct single source measurements of 7 TV, Internet together. We do need to figure 8 out a way. And we already have a print 9 fusion. And we need to figure out the best 10 mechanism for improving those print fusions. 11 And that could be in strong time diary. 12 It could be simply sending a 13 print or a self-administered print survey to 14 a convergence panel. And I think we should 15 test all of those things. Because data 16 integration and fusion and connecting 17 currencies is obviously going to be a big 18 part of all of our future. 19 So I see this as an opportunity. 20 And as long as we continue to use the word 21 test rather than in a sense create a fait 22 accompli, then we're all behind it. 23 MS. SIRKIN: That's exactly the 24 sense I was wanting to give. Is a test. And 25 I think we've got lots of interested people. 104 1 We've spent the last few days at the ARF 2 Conference listening to everybody discussing 3 how integration of databases is going to be 4 the future. So that's what we're asking for. 5 $15,000 from the Council to drive that test a 6 bit further forward. 7 MR. SUSSMAN: So you do this 8 test. What is the action at the end of it? 9 What will you be able to know or not or do? 10 What happens next? 11 MS. BRILL: Are there benchmarks 12 that we're comparing to? What are we 13 testing, whether we can do it? 14 MR. DONATO: I can sort of frame 15 it in less abstract. We have, for example, 16 already an MRI Nielsen fusion, TV fusion. We 17 have already an Internet TV fusion. We have 18 already Homescan television fusion. I think 19 we actually have them kind of all in one 20 also. 21 And so the question is, so let's 22 take a look at the data in the Ball State 23 study. Can you imagine or figure out how you 24 could improve that fusion by using that data 25 in some way. I can't tell what the 105 1 definition of improvement is yet. Because we 2 haven't really thought about it. I can't 3 tell you what the methodology is because 500 4 cases in six market groups is really quite 5 limited. 6 MS. BRILL: Even though it's two 7 observations per person. 8 MS. BUSLIK: It's also data. 9 MR. DONATO: But I think this is 10 what the ask is. The ask is, to look at the 11 data and see if there's any way, any way that 12 that could improve or inform beyond what 13 we're already doing with a fusion. 14 MS. BRILL: Well, the idea is 15 that it's a whole other way to get utility 16 out of this wonderful database. So between 17 the 90,000 and the 15,000, we're asking for 18 $105,000 altogether. 19 MR. HESS: Shari, after the 20 discussion's over, we will separate those two 21 and vote on them separately. I think one is 22 a committee request. Then the other one has 23 AFR linkages, et cetera. And vote on those 24 separately. 25 MR. DONATO: Nielsen is going to 106 1 do some of this on our own. We're going to 2 investigate time diary data. Could improve. 3 We have lots of time diary studies that we 4 ourselves have done here in the United 5 States. And we're trying to see whether 6 there's any way we can think that can inform 7 and improve beyond. 8 I can tell you, my clients up 9 front, I think it's unlikely that any of 10 these ancillary databases would do a better 11 job than a growing convergence of measurement 12 within the same panel. However, it is 13 entirely possible that some of these 14 ancillary databases could improve it over 15 what we currently have with the convergence 16 base. When I say "convergence," I'm not 17 talking, I'm limited to the thousand accounts 18 we have right now. I really think we're down 19 the road as we begin to have 5 or 6,000 20 household TV panels. By that time we'll have 21 mobile with the convergence panel. 22 MR. SUSSMAN: I guess my question 23 is kind of from a Council perspective. 24 $15,000 in this CRE has never really been a 25 lot. But here's the situation where we have 107 1 a great product. And now we're looking at 2 outsiders looking how to use that. Yet 3 they're asking the CRE to fund it. I don't 4 know who owns it, who gets value of it after 5 the fact. Will this become a product that 6 somebody else is going to sell? Who knows 7 what happens with this later? I don't know 8 where it fits into the Council's purview. 9 MS. SHAGRIN: It just doesn't 10 feel right. Especially if you're telling me 11 that you're already doing that. And you 12 already plan to use that. It just doesn't 13 seem right. 14 MR. HESS: Okay. So there's 15 definitely some concern. Kate, you were 16 asked to provide a short version. But given 17 that you have some negative sentiment here, 18 do you want to actually formulate a positive 19 argument in favor of the AFR request? 20 MS. SIRKIN: Well, I think Ernie 21 just mentioned a great piece of information. 22 And I think we'd all like to see it help the 23 industry and continues to measure and apply 24 this to the best effect. And I think that's 25 all this is asking right now. Is there 108 1 something that we can learn from this 2 database that will help us towards a holistic 3 understanding of media consumption that they 4 can use the plan. 5 I think there are lots of 6 questions that need to be addressed in terms 7 of who might own it. How might funding add 8 revenue to it forward. And it would be nice 9 to have a small group of people to work on 10 that, perhaps as a more focused business 11 model. 12 I think, in my mind, it's sort of 13 an ideal opportunity for debate. AFR 14 Council. The building clue is people from 15 all the parts of the industry decide to 16 understand which data sets we have within the 17 industry right now that could be used to 18 advance the ability to conduct policy in your 19 planning. 20 MR. HESS: Kate, not to put the 21 entire onus on you, we can ask Shari and 22 anybody else in favor, can you try to address 23 Ira's question about once the data gets out 24 of the CRE's hands who knows exactly how that 25 date's going to be packaged up? 109 1 MS. SIRKIN: I think we need to 2 maintain control and set rules and boundaries 3 around that. But we can only do it by moving 4 that first set. 5 MS. BRILL: Right. The intent of 6 this is for learning only. It's certainly 7 not a product that we're going to bring to 8 market. And there are many people at Nielsen 9 who are on these AFR committees. You know 10 Pete Doan, Howard Shimmel. They can perhaps 11 oversee that. I mean, not that I'm 12 volunteering them necessarily, but Pete Doan 13 has done so much work in the fusion area, 14 perhaps this could be something that would be 15 of interest to him also. It's just a way to 16 learn. 17 MR. SUSSMAN: Shari, just real 18 quick, what might be helpful says a lot of 19 names and what they've done in the past. It 20 doesn't say what they're going to do. It 21 might be able to have an outline of what 22 they're going to do for the $15,000. I don't 23 get what they're going to do. 24 MR. HESS: Let me interrupt and 25 just say for the purpose of moving forward 110 1 right now, let's separate the two like I said 2 we were going to do. Let's separate the two. 3 And Shari, could you formulate a 4 phrase to put the 90,000 as a motion? Let's 5 vote on that. Because, clearly there's 6 debate on the second one. Maybe not quite as 7 much debate I sensed on the first one. 8 MS. BRILL: Okay. The proposal 9 is to fund $90,000 to support our hiring of 10 Steve Singer and TSG to delve into the VCM 11 database to field the additional database 12 queries that we have. 13 MR. HESS: Point of 14 clarification: How long will that take or 15 when would that be available? 16 MR. SUSSMAN: Three to four 17 months. 18 MS. SIRKIN: For the record, we 19 don't have a format here. But there's about 20 800,000 or so in our budget still. So it's 21 some research we can do. 22 MS. BRILL: The advantages that 23 Steve Singer has already worked with these 24 data. And he'd also be working in tandem 25 with the analytics team at Sequent who are 111 1 also familiar with these data. So they can 2 get through it pretty quickly. 3 MR. HESS: The only, if I follow 4 the rules of order, it's been moved and 5 seconded. You can ask for a point of 6 clarification. But you can't argue in favor 7 or against at this point. 8 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: Can I ask if 9 this is in addition to or instead of the 10 Council members having access to the data as 11 Paul suggested earlier? 12 MR. HESS: It's separate. It's a 13 separate session. 14 MR. SUSSMAN: It's added to this 15 checklist. 16 MR. HESS: It would not preclude 17 that. That's why we're having a separate 18 decision, both on the ARF request as well as 19 the possibility of Paul and just going down 20 an ad hoc path. So this is just the 90,000. 21 Ceril, point of clarification 22 only? 23 MS. SHAGRIN: The $90,000 is the 24 total cost. Because at an earlier meeting we 25 talked about using Sequent Partners and 112 1 talked about Ball State some more. This is 2 instead of that. 3 MR. ZACKON: Correct. 4 MS. BUSLIK: And that's just 5 these questions that are here. 6 MR. HESS: Shari, just can you 7 answer that? 8 MS. BRILL: Those. Yes. Those 9 are the questions that we had sent to Steve 10 for review. 11 MR. IVIE: And Sequent Partners 12 doesn't have any costs, even though they're 13 just supplying -- 14 MS. BRILL: That includes 15 everything. It's no separate cost. 16 MR. HESS: 90 is the total, total 17 cost. We will have the data in about three, 18 four months. And it will be available in 19 PowerPoint or a report? 20 MS. BRILL: We are going to have 21 slides made as part of that. Yes. 22 MR. ZACKON: Just to be sure, 23 some background information, just the 24 consequence of things was Sequent Partners 25 put a bid of $210,000. The Council felt that 113 1 was pretty high. The committee came in last 2 meeting requesting $100,000. But there were 3 no specifics attached to it. Now the 4 specifics are attached and the committee's 5 coming back and asking for $90,000. 6 MR. HESS: Okay. I appreciate 7 all the serious concern about how to spend 8 money. So that's great. 9 Can I start in the room here. 10 Raise your hand if you are in favor of 11 spending the $90,000 with all the provisos 12 that Shari mentioned? 13 MS. BRILL: Can I vote for my 14 own? 15 MR. HESS: Yes, you can. Okay. 16 Sorry. I'm going to vote yes. And could I 17 see the nays raise your hand if you are 18 against in the room, okay. How about on the 19 phone? 20 (En masse, ayes.) 21 MR. HESS: How about nay? All 22 right. So the 90,000 is passed. Let the 23 record show that. 24 MS. BUSLIK: Can I ask -- 25 MR. HESS: Now, I do have to get 114 1 a sense of timing here. Because we want to, 2 on the one hand, we want to finish on time. 3 We probably have, Richard, a little bit of 4 pad in new business. 5 MR. ZACKON: We have 40 minutes 6 for Nielsen. And then there's your new 7 business issue which is how to get access to 8 clients. 9 MR. HESS: In effect that. So, 10 Shari, did you have anything else to cover? 11 MS. BRILL: Yes. Two quick 12 things. We are in the process of editing 13 some video that came in from the 3/26 14 presentation. So that's the first thing. So 15 we will be able to have, you know, captured 16 the video of that initial presentation of the 17 VCM findings that was given back in March. 18 So that's another thing that's under way. 19 And then, finally, while I'm 20 aware that we have about $800,000 left in the 21 treasury, we have received a groundswell of 22 support for a third wave of the VCM study. 23 So what the committee has been doing is we 24 are compiling input on what you would like to 25 see happen in this third wave. And we've 115 1 submitting an RFP to Sequent. And we will 2 hopefully have a proposal for you to review 3 in the fall. And maybe by then we'll know if 4 there'll be any additional funding for 2010. 5 MR. DONATO: I can talk to that 6 now. 7 MS. BRILL: Perfect segue. Okay, 8 I'm done. 9 MR. DONATO: So the bottom line 10 is within Nielsen there were two proposals 11 for how to continue funding the Council. And 12 one was to make a much smaller contribution 13 this year because of the economy. And to 14 make a contribution next year, of course. 15 But not to make a commitment to a particular 16 level. I actually felt that that kind of 17 leaves you between a rock and a hard place. 18 Because if you make a smaller contribution 19 this year and you don't have what you have 20 next year you really can't plan. And you're 21 going to be doing your planning now. 22 So I think there's a much better 23 proposal. There's no way that you're going 24 to spend the 800 or $900,000 left before the 25 end of the year. And just to make a 116 1 commitment to the normal contribution of 2.5 2 million for next year. 3 MR. HESS: Is that official, 4 semi-official? 5 MR. DONATO: Pretty official. 6 Let's put it this way. 7 MR. HESS: All in favor say aye. 8 MR. DONATO: Assume the E-mail to 9 me over the last couple of days, and it's 10 going to be at 2.5. It's certainly going to 11 be above 2 million. I think it's going to be 12 2.5. 13 MS. SIRKIN: Paul, you are the 14 man. 15 MR. DONATO: Thank you. And it's 16 Susan. She's very sensitive to the successes 17 of the Council and the successes of the two 18 big studies we launched this here. This way 19 you can plan. Pretty know what's in the 20 budget. 21 MS. SIRKIN: Can you come and 22 make that same speech to my company? 23 MR. HESS: You know, we took some 24 credit for ourselves about an hour ago. 25 Working hard, managing away, and being good 117 1 citizens and getting stuff done. 2 So how about a vote of 3 acknowledgement for Nielsen, expressed either 4 as applause, as a unanimous vote. If I hear 5 any nays, I want to talk to you personally. 6 This one. 7 So how about an acclimation for 8 Nielsen in stepping up and telling us in June 9 of what is a down year about next year's 10 funding. 11 (Applause.) 12 MR. HESS: How about the folks on 13 the phone? 14 (Phone applause.) 15 MR. DONATO: I'll make sure I 16 communicate that to Susan. 17 MS. BUSLIK: In three months when 18 the new funds would be available, it would be 19 great if we can get some publicity about that 20 too. So it shouldn't just be here. 21 MR. ZACKON: Actually, I had two 22 other items from the committee that would 23 come up. One is just that. When is the next 24 press release? And now that the money's been 25 voted, that seems a timely moment for that. 118 1 And the other is there was conversation 2 about. 3 And Council has not asked for 4 anything at this point, but putting out an 5 academic RFP. Where we would invite 6 academics to make proposals about how they 7 would analyze this research and the Council, 8 if it votes to, would put up some money for 9 certain sorts of analyses. 10 So the only action step is to 11 wait if the committee does that. To expect 12 some RFPs that would come in of a much 13 smaller nature of what we've been talking 14 about to date of how a professor of mass 15 communication at Indiana University might 16 analyze those data. 17 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: At the CTAM 18 conference when it was presented, someone 19 suggested that what are to be interactive 20 media initiative is a group of people that 21 would corral. It's exactly what you're 22 talking about, using leveraging actions with 23 academia. And all those great grad students 24 who are dying to get their databases like 25 this, to data-mine on our behalf. 119 1 MR. ZACKON: Put a general RFP on 2 an academic wire to have people know and let 3 them submit proposals. 4 MS. BUSLIK: Could that come out 5 after we do the next piece of data-mining 6 itself? 7 MR. HESS: I'm going to try to 8 not let the glow from the most recent 9 comments by Paul impact our ability to finish 10 on time and to manage the meeting. 11 Here's what I propose, Paul, 12 unless you disagree, it might be useful to 13 hear your update and then hearing where you 14 gays are going to go. Then under new 15 business covering both topics the ad hoc 16 topic that I was going to bring up that we've 17 already touched on. And then also if 18 somebody does want to formulate that $15,000 19 recommendation as a motion, addressing it 20 then. Does that make sense? Because I don't 21 know what you're going to do rather than 22 addressing those now. Okay. Let's do that. 23 MR. DONATO: I get to play second 24 fiddle to Michael. He'll do the color 25 commentary, okay. 120 1 MR. LINK: So I'm going to do 2 something slightly different than what's set 3 up. At some point we will get to the point 4 where there are learning out of that Insights 5 to Practice committee. Then I will update 6 everyone how we've done how we've implemented 7 or decided not to. But what we decided to do 8 for this meeting was kind of update 9 something, Paul, you had done at one of the 10 early meetings which is just to give you a 11 sense of what are some of the major research 12 and development that Nielsen has going on 13 right now. Where are we focused kind of 14 across the board, particularly with me. 15 Again, this is not a 16 comprehensive list. This is really kind of 17 hitting most of the high points for the most 18 part. One thing I wanted to do is step back 19 for a second. And just mention that 20 internally within Nielsen there have been 21 some changes that will have, I think, a very 22 positive effect. 23 Particularly what goes on with 24 this particular group, I have to get the 25 correct slide. And that is something of a 121 1 reorganization across Nielsen within the 2 measurement sciences community, which is 3 essentially statistics, new methodologies, 4 modelers, those folks. Essentially everybody 5 that reports to Paul up until just recently. 6 Probably the kind term, we were a 7 confederation of sciences working together 8 when it made sense to some degree. Some 9 folks operating in isolation. 10 Now, essentially we've taken all 11 of these pieces. We've pooled them together. 12 Media, online, consumer. Anyone that's 13 essentially in a measurement sciences type 14 role, they all now report to Paul. And the 15 nice thing -- 16 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: You centralized 17 it. 18 MR. LINK: We've centralized it. 19 Everyone is obviously still out doing their 20 thing. But certainly the type we've 21 centralized. And we're looking at a lot more 22 integration fro across those various areas. 23 Thing is things that are working well in one 24 area can now be transported to another and 25 vice versa. So that's one of the key things 122 1 that I just want to point out here. 2 MR. DONATO: Let me give some 3 color to. So, for example, Manoch, you know, 4 online mobile reports to Manoch. And the 5 reason for that is obvious. That it's a very 6 fine line between online and mobile. They're 7 doing exactly the same thing. Mobile will be 8 a bigger delivery of Internet services than a 9 computer at some point. 10 Certainly, globally what it also 11 allows us to do is we have all these 12 international resources. It allows us to 13 pull in international resources and in some 14 cases it's software. In some cases it's 15 people. And all of a sudden there are about 16 a thousand measurement scientists globally 17 within the Nielsen organization. 18 And so, you know, we had issues 19 with a certain product, not the television 20 product. Another product. And it enabled me 21 to very quickly bring in a team of people 22 that we then had access to to help solve 23 those problems. The same is actually true in 24 television. We have operations in about 40 25 countries. As you all know, Nielsen Media 123 1 Research's sort of gestaldt is what it is. 2 And then there's EGB. And EGB as 3 a company it's now Nielsen EGB. It's a very 4 different kind of very nimble operation. 5 They use much small URL servers and software 6 system. And so what we're finding now is 7 that having access to that kind of software, 8 some of those people, and it goes both ways. 9 I'd say probably Scott Bell is 10 probably the best sampling statistician in 11 the whole media organization. So it really 12 is a good opportunity. And now add we've got 13 about 600 people within the consumer 14 division. And if you are at the AFR this 15 week hearing all this stuff about matching TV 16 databases with frequency, frequent shopper 17 cards and that kind of stuff. So the lines 18 between who is a consumer measurement 19 scientist and a media measurement scientist 20 is really, really very quickly fading. And 21 so it gives us an opportunity. 22 So, Frank Fiotoski who's head of 23 our consumer research here in the United 24 States, he reports up to Mark Green who's 25 global consumer. Mark reports to me. But 124 1 I'm having Frank work with the media people 2 because they have very different skills. I'd 3 say the media people have the best weighting 4 skills. Probably some of the best sampling 5 skills. But on the modeling side of things 6 outside of these peek groups, those best, 7 those assets really all come out of bases and 8 the consumer group. 9 So I have really now an army of 10 people that I can, you know, address issues 11 as they come up. And then, more importantly, 12 the opportunity for product development. 13 Whether you know media and you know product, 14 and you know consumer, then the ability to 15 brainstorm products that cross both of those 16 is so much greater. 17 MR. LINK: And you all have a 18 copy of that org chart. We're not going to 19 go over it. But I'm just going to say in 20 terms of setting up what we're doing now, my 21 guess is a year from now if I were to repeat 22 some of these things that we're going to be 23 doing, you're going to see a very different 24 R&D agenda evolving over the next 12 to 18 25 months as a result of this reorganization. 125 1 Let me step through just very 2 briefly here some of the high points on some 3 of the areas that we're doing. Obviously we 4 still don't diary measurement. As I think 5 most of you know we are now doing domestic in 6 the U.S. radio along with TV. And the agenda 7 here is fairly straightforward. A 8 continuation of what we've done for the last 9 18 months to two years, really focused on one 10 is optimizing the effectiveness of 11 address-based sampling. So we've moved over 12 from random digit dialing. 13 There are a number of things that 14 have come up we really want to focus on. 15 Everything from really improving 16 participation among some of these groups that 17 now we have in there. But we need to 18 boost -- in particular we have cell 19 phone-only folks. But it's not up to the 20 folks penetration in the U.S.. 21 Spanish language households is 22 another key area that we're really focused on 23 right now to ensure that those folks are 24 represented as well. Get into a number of 25 things now that we're sampling from 126 1 addresses. We're looking at how we can 2 utilize other databases that we pull in from 3 the very beginning on a sample frame stage 4 and be able to really maximize and optimize 5 this entire system. 6 Modernization of the TV diary. 7 I'll be honest, this is something when I 8 first came in, I looked at the quaint 1950s 9 looking diary that we still use. I would 10 like to update this. So we've been working 11 on how we are going to modernize, at least at 12 a minimum, the look, as well as some of the 13 internal stuff. And we're hoping to test 14 that actually early next year. 15 We have not obviously given up on 16 electronic alternatives to the diary. The 17 mailable meter is the most promising work 18 there, which began about two years ago, 19 continues. We are rolling out, actually, it 20 starts in August, a major one-year panel 21 test. We're using this small device that 22 actually gets mailed to the household for 23 each TV. They set it near the TV. And then 24 they use a log to record who's viewing. And 25 the log is far simpler to fill out than an 127 1 actual diary. So that's kind of more on the 2 diary front. 3 Turning to the TV meter panels, 4 as Paul alluded to earlier, our big 5 initiative that right now that we just 6 launched with the TV and P.C., within our 7 currency panel. Where we are rolling out our 8 first 375 homes, monitoring that very closely 9 we're going back. It's a combination going 10 back to homes that are already in the panel, 11 as well as some of the new homes up front. 12 And recruiting not only for TV, but also at 13 NPSS and monitoring the PSS as well. 14 Once we get to 375, we're 15 essentially taking a time out. Doing a deep 16 dive analysis into the data and what things 17 look like before we decide on any follow-up 18 potential rollout. Also mentioned, George 19 mentioned the in panel validation study which 20 continues on a quarterly basis. 21 This was a QC initiative that we 22 put in place where initially we take a 23 quarter of our meter panelists. We phone 24 them up and do a coincidental. And we 25 released some of the first results not too 128 1 long ago. As a result of that, we will be 2 talking with both George as well as all of 3 you in here about a series of initiatives 4 that we have for improving button-pushing 5 compliance. And more on that in the very 6 near future. 7 We are also, with the meter 8 panels, assessing all other tuning. 9 Obviously, there's been a rollout of the 10 meter in particular markets. There's been a 11 concern about the level of AOT. And we're 12 doing a number of different assessments from 13 engineering to talking to similar household 14 for statistical analysis to assure that 15 things that are in the AOC bucket really are 16 all over tuning. And we're not missing 17 anything there. 18 Obviously, ongoing our major 19 focus is on representation. We just 20 completed essentially a yearlong look at our 21 incentive structures to make sure that was 22 we're using the money wisely. Optimally, did 23 not actually make many changes there after 24 that assessment. This looking at 25 participating among household size one. 129 1 That's one over the years we've seen a 2 decline in participation, both at the younger 3 and at the older end. So we're looking at 4 how can we ensure that we're recruting those 5 folks. And then obviously race, ethnic and 6 age distributions are always an ongoing 7 concern. 8 Last, but not least on this 9 front, there is work on the next generation 10 of meter and people meter. And as Paul 11 pointed out, we're actually working very 12 closely with the folks in Europe, Nielsen 13 EGB. To look at what they do and what their 14 processes are. And what their equipment is. 15 All of these things are now kind of in play. 16 MR. DONATO: On that slide, mind 17 you, on the diary service, I also wanted to 18 update you. We have a proposal, as so many 19 other people do, of course. But one of the 20 things was to also do a simulation of how we 21 would integrate set-top box data into a 22 current meter diary market or a diary-only 23 market. Of course it probably would 24 ultimately rely on a having a mailable meter 25 to get some form of electronic collection 130 1 within those houselholds also. And if Kanu 2 doesn't accept the integration proposal, 3 we'll just go to Charter or one of the other 4 NSOs we're working with. 5 MR. HESS: Paul, at the meeting 6 yesterday there was a comment made that Kanu 7 has had a slip-up of some sort. Maybe not 8 everybody knows what that slip-up in cuts, 9 what that is in a second. How does that 10 impact your proposal? 11 MR. DONATO: I think it impacts 12 everybody the same way. I don't actually 13 know what the sli-up was. I know that there 14 was a delay that they announced. From our 15 perspective, I know that everyone is very 16 worried about privacy. We have a really 17 active -- actually, this is a resource that 18 we could provide. 19 Susan is in Washington a couple 20 of times a month. She's meeting with 21 Representative Baucher, the guy from the 22 other service. All the names that he talked 23 about year, very active. I'm on the Privacy 24 Council. I am writing our company's privacy 25 statements. Right now we have full-time 131 1 lawyers addressing this. And, Jack, you may 2 know more than I, or Colleen you may know. 3 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: They were going 4 to roll out basically the ability to 5 geographically target, I believe it was 6 higher income households as sort of like as a 7 national demo in a sense. And they basically 8 just kind of couldn't make it happen. And 9 have either completely bailed on it or 10 significantly delayed it. 11 MR. DONATO: Yes. Are we 12 surprised at the AMS that we really didn't 13 get into the detail on those privacy issues? 14 It's entirely possible that they pulled back 15 from individual Council targeting and rolled 16 back to like a zip plus 4 which is a cluster. 17 And, you know, so there's a lot going on 18 there. And it may be many years before the 19 full opportunity of targeting and targeting 20 is realized. Because people are taking baby 21 steps because of my understanding is Baucher 22 said a privacy bill will be passed. If you 23 want to work with me to craft it in a way 24 that is the best for everybody, that's fine. 25 But he will. I don't know whether he knows 132 1 this or not, but he said he will be passing a 2 bill. 3 A VOICE: I don't know. 4 MS. BRILL: I will hear about the 5 privacy issue wrapper to addressable adds on 6 cable. But hasn't the horse already gotten 7 out of the barn on the Internet? I mean, you 8 can find out so much about people and tie it 9 back to an individual IP address. You don't 10 know the person by name. But you certainly 11 can follow all the keystrokes that are going 12 on. And, you know, your credit card bill. 13 You know, places like Experion, they have so 14 much information about you already. I don't 15 understand how, you know, getting a Target ad 16 about cat food violates it any further. 17 MS. COWAN: Shari, actually I 18 think what has happened with the online that 19 is causing this argument right now... 20 MR. WACHSLAG: That's actually 21 only one point of it. Malvertising is 22 another where they're down-loading Malware. 23 And releasing personal identifiable 24 information. So it's bigger than that. 25 MR. DONATO: An example of it, 133 1 two years ago, Sears settlement, $20 million 2 lawsuit on privacy. Not to be competitive 3 here. It was a ComCorp meter. They had 4 spyware built inside of it. And the ComCorp 5 is a privacy issue. They actually say, I 6 don't know if they call it spyware. They 7 actually describe what they actually did. 8 And the judge said, found that 9 whatever the negligence was, everyone knows 10 nobody reads the privacy statements. So 11 therefore, what we're doing right now is, you 12 have an obligation if it's something like 13 that that is sensitive, you have an 14 obligation to make it almost unavoidable for 15 something like dropping spyware into your 16 computer. You've got to opt in. You can't 17 put it within a 12-page privacy statement 18 saying click here, rushing kind of like a 19 seven point font. 20 MR. LINK: Well, speaking of 21 online and mobile panels, Colleen mentioned 22 earlier about making our online panels more 23 robust and that being really the thrust, 24 mentions Manoch being in charge of this area. 25 And that really is the focus right now. 134 1 My team did time actually working 2 quite close with Manoch to look at things 3 such as panel turnover. Looking at forced 4 turnover within their panels. Meter prompt 5 compliance. Those types of issues related to 6 online as well as some of the mobile devices 7 that we wind up having. 8 And then a number of analyses 9 that they're doing focused on validity and 10 reliability. Essentially, some of their 11 major panels are undergoing a pretty much 12 overall right now. In terms of questionnaire 13 recruitments, all of those aspects to really 14 try to make sure that they're as high quality 15 as possible. 16 The last two here I mention 17 because I want to make sure. These are two 18 areas that the Council might be able to 19 really take advantage of, one way or the 20 other. First, and we've mentioned several, 21 several times, the convergence fan. For 22 those that are not familiar with the details 23 of this, this is a noncurrency panel 24 essentially constructed of part of the homes 25 as these homes get forced out. 135 1 After their tenure in our meter 2 panel, as well as some newly recruited homes, 3 as well as some other panels that are pulled 4 together. And it serves two purposes, 5 really. One is kind of a consumption panel 6 to answer certain questions clients might 7 have that we can't answer right now from our 8 other panels. 9 But the other and more 10 importantly for this group, it's a test bed. 11 And Brian Feur who oversees this has made it 12 known to me a number of times. He's very 13 interested in working with the CRE in terms 14 of how that might be utilized as a test bed 15 for things that you all want. 16 And he offered to come in. And 17 maybe at one of the future meetings if it 18 made sense, he can give a a lot more detail 19 on the panel itself. Right now it's 20 currently tracking about a thousand homes, 21 roughly, 2,800 to 3,000 individuals. These 22 are folks then that have both Internet and 23 TV. Convergence panel then, by definition, 24 homes that have Internet. So it does not 25 have homes that are just TV-only. 136 1 Again, some of the focus of that 2 panel right now from our own internal 3 learning are really looking at the 4 simultaneous usage across different 5 platforms. Looking at then streaming online 6 versus DVR and TV video consumption patterns. 7 How are those types of things 8 taking place? Who does them? How often? 9 Also looking, we use this as a test bed to 10 test different types of incentives and 11 recruitment approaches. 12 We also, as I think Paul 13 mentioned earlier, deploying a noticeable 14 measurement right now. In the convergence 15 panel is something official. A test to see 16 how that would work, hopefully, potentially 17 in the future something that might roll out 18 on a wider scale. 19 MR. ZACKON: I have a question. 20 I'm wondering what I'm doing is, I'll put out 21 an announcement to members of the Council 22 rather than use an hour of this meeting time. 23 We'll set up a conference call for whoever 24 wants to participate with Brian and just 25 speculate about that. 137 1 MS. UYENCO: I have a quick 2 question, Michael. Actually, two questions. 3 When proportion of the forced 4 turnover homes to the newly recruited -- 5 MR. LINK: The newly recruited 6 200 of the homes for newly recruited, the 7 vast majority are forced turnover. 8 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: And it's all in 9 home video, right. You're not following 10 them. 11 MR. LINK: Correct. What one 12 what we're looking for. One of the tests 13 we're looking for is out of the home 14 component using the convergence panel as one 15 of the areas to assess out of the home 16 measurement. 17 MS. BUSLIK: You mentioned 18 mobile. How are you doing that in this 19 panel? 20 MR. LINK: The same thing. That 21 is right now it's more than designed, close 22 to looking at roll out. They're looking at 23 again going back to one of these homes, 24 recruiting them to carry different types of 25 devices. Mainly, the Nielsen mobile on 138 1 device meter which, if I remember correctly, 2 measures the use of video on mobile smart 3 phones. 4 MR. DONATO: I said this at the 5 meeting the other day. Actually, there's a 6 couple of ways to measure mobile. One we 7 have a bill panel where you scrap anything 8 that's billable that, you know, the second is 9 an on device meter. And the big debate in 10 the mobile industry now is whether research 11 companies could ever keep up with changes in 12 the mobile operating systems across all the 13 platforms to make an on device meter. 14 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: Not unlike 15 set-top boxe data because they're all 16 different too. 17 MR. DONATO: That's right. And 18 then the third technique which is probably 19 the easiest. And which you'll probably see 20 the most of is tagging. Any sites that one 21 of you mentions they tag that stuff. When it 22 goes to your phone, it's just like an 23 Internet tag. When it goes to your phone it 24 automatically through the Webinar comes back 25 to you. And we know that you've received it. 139 1 So we would know our sample homes have 2 received it. 3 So let's say you got a thousand 4 households and now they're in our mobile 5 measurement panel also. Probably the least 6 intrusive way of measuring them is for all 7 the websites that we tag, if you go to 8 whatever, NBC.com, it's tagged. When it hits 9 your phone it sends a message back. It pings 10 Nielsen back. And we know that your phone, 11 your browser just opened NBC.com. 12 MS. BUSLIK: Wow. 13 MR. HESS: Michael, just sorry, 14 just a time check here. I don't know how 15 much more material you've got. This stuff's 16 been really good. We have about five 17 minutes. 18 MR. LINK: I'll just wrap up 19 then. 20 You have slides on there. And 21 again, the second platform that might be of 22 interest. 23 MR. HESS: The timekeeper 24 corrected me. We've got about 10 minutes. 25 MR. ZACKON: We're okay. We 140 1 started late. 2 MR. DONATO: This is actually the 3 future of research. I did a keynote at 4 AAOPOR, American Association of Public 5 Opinion Research. It's mostly political 6 pollsters. And they're totally R&D. They're 7 not even addressed-based sampling. And they 8 correct for R&D with models. And I asked 9 them, honestly, in 10 years do you think 10 we're going to collect more data through LAN 11 lines or cell phones. There's no question 12 it's going to be through cell phone. It's 13 not just hello Ms. Jones, I'd like to speak 14 about. It's also short SMS style surveys 15 which are really easy to do. 16 Michael's going to show you. 17 These guys do prompting every half hour every 18 hour. It's really short it's like a minute 19 or two minutes. Sometimes they collect 20 pictures. I won't do it. Go ahead. 21 MR. LINK: You go right ahead. 22 Again, this is a platform that very much we 23 could utilize here with CRE if you thought it 24 would make sense. 25 Digital Ethnography. Obviously 141 1 everyone here is familiar with the concept of 2 ethnography. Video consumer mapping study. 3 What this study does is uses that term more. 4 Rather than have somebody in the home that's 5 actually watching it and doing observations, 6 how can we use all of this technology that we 7 have. The mole finds the Internet. Those 8 types of things to exactly there without 9 being there. And get as much a picture as we 10 can about what's going on in the home. 11 And the idea here is that this 12 information helps to bolster. I always put 13 it in a space between a formal focus group 14 that's kind of been in a focus group facility 15 and a big, large scale survey. Each of them 16 has their utility. This one operates in that 17 space kind of in between. Has a number of 18 utilities. 19 The idea here we use the term 20 Live 360. It's not to say that there is one 21 set of tools. But it's this concept that you 22 can use, whatever types of new tools are out 23 there in the space. To be able to pull them 24 into this tool set, to be able to gain 25 information about what folks are doing. 142 1 Well, what do I mean by that? 2 Well, using it, as Paul noted before, kind of 3 this combination of mobile-enabled data 4 capture. We outfit folks with a smart phone 5 that has a number of different features. One 6 of which though is that they do time surveys. 7 We can set this to do every hour. We can ask 8 them to every time they open the refrigerator 9 do something. You can set up at random. 10 The bottom line is you're gaining 11 observations across the course of a panel by 12 individuals answering just a few short 13 questions. Also, we typically combine this 14 with asking them to take a picture. So 15 you're going into your pantry. Take a 16 picture of what's there. 17 You know, if you're out and 18 about, what are you doing? Take a picture of 19 that. We're now incorporating the use of 20 video that is also on the smart phone as you 21 can think about it. There are a lot of new 22 applications you can also put on a smart 23 phone. We combine that with Webinar-based 24 data capture, a presurvey before the panel 25 begins, usually a postsurvey after it's done. 143 1 And then also he journaling. We 2 set it up so that folks can go onto the Live 3 360 website. They have their own page. Each 4 day they can journal about whatever they 5 want. 6 Bottom line is these panels are 7 usable seven to 10 days. Bottom line is 8 you're capturing a lot of information over 9 the course of that time period on these 10 individuals. So we've got the time-based 11 mobile surveys. 12 Oftentimes, what we're asking are 13 things such as where you at? What are you 14 doing right now? Who's with you? And what 15 kind of mood are you in? Happy, sad. And we 16 have a number of scales that they can go 17 through. The idea here is to make a quick, 18 short. So it's at least burdensome as 19 possible. But you're gaining some kind of 20 key information throughout the day about 21 what's going on with these folks. 22 MR. DONATO: We should try to do 23 this. I remember I polled way back. And it 24 captures the Facebook Nation kind of thing. 25 Taking a picture isn't a burden. It's 144 1 actually reinforcing. You take a picture 2 and it automatically goes. So you don't 3 actually go, whether somebody was squinting 4 or whatever. And then you can't take it 5 back. It goes. You take the picture, it's 6 gone. You can't pose or anything like that. 7 But it's actually reinforcing. And when you 8 get the journal back it's kind of like 9 getting a Facebook page or something. And 10 for young people who won't fill out a 11 half-hour survey and will spend three hours 12 on Facebook posting their life, it sort of 13 captures that kind of momentum. 14 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: Also like 15 accustomed to Twittering all day long in 16 short spurts this motion of the pinging them. 17 We've done this with a lot of music research. 18 It's great for capturing the behavior and 19 mood state and why how people are accessing 20 music. This is great. I'm glad to hear you 21 guys are pursuing something like that. 22 MR. LINK: Another piece in 23 addition to the tech survey with the phone. 24 You can capture the visual elemental and when 25 those do come back, usually you can use them 145 1 any number of ways. One is in a 2 presentation. But we're also working on more 3 automated coding schemes to be able to 4 actually pour through the pictures, bore 5 through the videos and use some of the 6 technologies available these days to code 7 that visual information. 8 MR. DONATO: Beyond graduate 9 students. 10 MS. LIGUORI: What are the 11 pictures? Someone sends you a photo. What 12 type of information are you going to glean 13 from it other than opening your refrigerator, 14 seeing all the products in there, watching 15 TV. Snap. 16 MR. LINK: If you're thinking 17 about it in terms of a large scale survey it 18 doesn't work quite in that mode. But if 19 you're trying to figure out different 20 segments and you're trying, bottom line, what 21 I'll show you, this all kind of comes 22 together. And you do come together different 23 segments. You visualize them. You put a 24 face to them. And kind of see what's the 25 typical day of their type of individual. And 146 1 it starts to give you more rich information 2 than you're going to get out of a focus 3 group. But not quite as kind of -- 4 MR. DONATO: The pictures are 5 either of interest every time you open a 6 refrigerator. And it's too complex to ask 7 people to record everything in the 8 refrigerator. Or they're time-driven. It's 9 basically a photograph of everything they're 10 looking at once an hour every hour. And it 11 kind of gives you a feel throughout the day 12 when they're doing sports. 13 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: So if we were 14 taking the survey I would have already sent 15 them three pictures of Paul. 16 MR. DONATO: That's right. Yes. 17 Oh, what a terrible life. 18 MS. LIGUORI: Aren't you making 19 assumptions? It mean someone sitting there 20 and how they shoot it. You may not see that 21 they're working. You may just see them and 22 think, okay, are they reading, working? 23 MR. DONATO: Typically not taking 24 a picture of themselves, but the environment 25 in which they're at. The instructions would 147 1 be take a picture. I mean take a picture of 2 a meeting. From sitting in front of a 3 computer. I take a picture of the computer. 4 It's basically what I'm seeing. 5 MS. BUSLIK: You have this 6 already going. 7 MR. DONATO: We have done work 8 for several clients in this room. 9 MR. LINK: Let me skip in the 10 interests of time in answering Pat's 11 question. Give you just a feel, okay. 12 Here's just a very, very brief 13 kind of write-up so to speak. Here's one 14 demographic group. Lisa. Lisa represents a 15 particular segment. You see some of the 16 basic background characteristics, where she 17 comes from. Again, she's representing a 18 number of folks in the panel that were very 19 similar. 20 Some of the things we learned 21 about her. She's very TV-centric. She owns 22 a number of things. She's very techie. 23 Those types of things. We've asked her to 24 record her day. We can put together a day in 25 the life of Lisa, typical Lisa-type video 148 1 from starting her day. And you combine this 2 with the mood information and who you're 3 with. Hanging out with her daughter. She's 4 happy. She's got to take her to school. The 5 kind of anxious because they're on the road. 6 Now we do try to not have them take pictures 7 while they're driving. Somebody else take 8 the picture, please. Go out and about. Does 9 the shopping. Is coming back home. 10 Afternoon. You'll see in the 11 afternoon kind of a lull. And then the 12 daughter comes back. Husband's coming home. 13 They're getting ready to go to the baseball 14 game. Happy, relaxed, tired. They're coming 15 home. Then relaxing with the evening news 16 and then off to bed. Then again we'll black 17 out the picture. We're creating a perfect 18 zone that you're adding visual video to some 19 of those personas to try to give them a 20 little bit more life. 21 So again, what has this been used 22 for to date? Mainly, it's been used, I'll be 23 honest, more on the consumer goods side, less 24 on the media consumption side. But it 25 certainly has its applications. 149 1 Looking at messaging, I think we 2 all know that one of the nice things with the 3 mobile surveys is you can capture some of 4 what's going on at work. Because folks can 5 take that wherever they're at. So it's not 6 place-specific. You can do deep dives into 7 different topics, different dayparts. Pretty 8 much whatever you want to design. 9 So, again, the bottom line here 10 is you're trying to really add context to 11 some of these segmentations and learn a lot 12 more about kind of what's going on. I just 13 want to wrap up. I'm not going to go through 14 each one of these. I guess those of us on 15 Insights to Practice committee at Nielsen did 16 kind of brainstorm on, for us what would be 17 some things that the Council might look at 18 and consider taking up. 19 What are the things that we see 20 as kind of being problematic issue areas 21 from, I think some of the key things really 22 do come back to this cross platform issue. 23 What's the business model? What are the good 24 metrics that you all are looking for? How do 25 you handle multiple exposures across these 150 1 different types of platforms? 2 Although, one that's more 3 Nielsen-related is with the Nielsen data 4 being used for posting. How's it being used 5 and are there some standards out there. We 6 understand in talking to clients that there 7 are a number of issues which allow the data 8 just being used. Is that something this 9 group can get into? 10 And then, again, I think as 11 probably most of the committees touch on 12 moving beyond demographics to really 13 understanding behavioral aspects of what's 14 going on across all of the things that we're 15 looking at. 16 So that is, in short, is a just 17 very brief wrap-up, high level of some of the 18 R&D things we have going on at Nielsen. 19 Again, not a comprehensive list, but touches 20 on some of the highlights. 21 Questions? 22 MR. HESS: Thank you very much. 23 A VOICE: 360, was that presented 24 at the AFR? 25 MR. LINK: Yes. Karen released 151 1 that. She presented that. 2 A VOICE: Nice sample of a 3 representative. 4 MR. LINK: We can certainly share 5 that information. 6 MS. BUSLIK: Would you do that? 7 MR. LINK: Sure. 8 MR. IVIE: A quick one on the org 9 chart. There's a position here, field cost 10 leadership COE. What is that? 11 MR. LINK: COE, Center Of 12 Excellence. That is an individual that was 13 put in place to really look and optimize what 14 the field's doing. 15 Do we have the right kind of 16 contracts in place? Are there places we can 17 spend money? 18 Obviously, when you're talking 19 about a huge multimillion dollar operation 20 like that, that individual's looking at those 21 types. 22 MR. DONATO: I'll give you an 23 example. We are increasing DRFCL by how many 24 units? It's a digital. It's a cell phone 25 instead of LAN lines and it's going to save 152 1 us probably $2 million. 2 MR. IVIE: Communication between 3 meters and Nielsen. Cell phone versus LAN 4 line. 5 MS. FAHEY-RUSH: When you say 6 Centers Of Excellence, do you mean 7 structurally or do you mean that that person 8 is a peer leader for your entire centralized 9 organization? 10 MR. DONATO: It actually is a 11 copy of a term that I think P&G and other 12 major advertisers use. What you do, you're 13 taking functions in this case. It's six 14 sigma black belts or master black belts. And 15 they're specialty, logistics organization, 16 cost leadership and quality. 17 And you basically in this 18 particular function you turn them loose on 19 the organization. And they evaluate the 20 organization and come back with 21 recommendations about either inefficiencies 22 or quality issues, quality problems about to 23 happen in the organization. 24 So, for example, a statistical 25 center of excellence, you take all your best 153 1 statisticians and they have a day job which 2 occupies 80 percent of their time. But they 3 dedicate maybe 20 percent of their time to 4 working with other organizations to solve 5 statistical problems. 6 So, for example, consumers got 7 more models experience than anybody in the 8 media organization. A lot of the consumer 9 measurement scientists now spend about 20 10 percent of their time working with media on 11 things like set-top boxes monitoring and that 12 kind of stuff. 13 MR. ZACKON: We need to return to 14 two issues. I just want to acknowledge 15 Michael and Paul. You guys should know how 16 much members appreciate these updates. 17 Probably that's the most appreciated aspect 18 of what we do. 19 A VOICE: We also appreciate the 20 money. 21 MR. ZACKON: That's also 22 universal. 23 MR. HESS: We really have two 24 topics. And we have 20 minutes to cover 25 those two topics. They're interrelated. I'm 154 1 going to say let's spend 10 minutes on the ad 2 hoc topic. I have a feeling that won't be 3 totally resolved at this point. But at least 4 let's get some direction. 5 And the second one is if Kate, 6 Shari, I think Kate you were asked to be the 7 proponent. So if you feel today is the right 8 day to formulate an actual motion for the 9 $15,000, then we will do that too as item 2. 10 MS. SIRKIN: Okay. Sounds good. 11 MR. HESS: So guys, so on the 12 first topic I've only said that Paul, because 13 you're going to be involved with it, so the 14 first topic is really the ad hoc topic. And 15 I have to say that I came in prepared to kind 16 of lead the charge for that. But that's 17 before I knew that you might make the entire 18 database available. So I think just, you 19 know, just 30 seconds on where I was going to 20 go was to say that. And I'm repeating what I 21 said half an hour ago. 22 So, very quickly, that clients 23 probably would want ad hoc assessments and ad 24 hoc access. I gave a couple of very 25 simplistic examples of. I don't really have 155 1 to give a lot. It's just that Beth and I 2 might be talking tomorrow afternoon. Then we 3 come up with, oh, that would really be neat 4 to do a cross tab on. 5 But right now the way the data's 6 structured, we don't have that answer in the 7 current table sets. It's not party of 8 Shari's. Can we get that? What we would 9 like, what I came here to open the discussion 10 on as the representative of this ad hoc area 11 is just to say let's figure out a way to do 12 that. 13 MR. DONATO: Good. I'm all for 14 it. And we almost have a kind of line of 15 sight on the way. If there's a training 16 session in Tampa and any member of the 17 committee who knows it, wants to get into the 18 data, make sure they send something to the 19 training center. 20 MS. SIRKIN: Can you tell us when 21 that is if you know? 22 MR. LINK: We are second-looking 23 at the second or third week in July, if at 24 all possible. 25 MS. SHAGRIN: You'll send out a 156 1 date. 2 MR. LINK: Yes, yes. 3 MS. BUSLIK: For those of us who 4 can't get down there? 5 MR. DONATO: Can be done at the 6 Webinar or something. Live meeting. 7 MR. HESS: If Paul, somebody goes 8 to Tampa or goes to the Webinar, does that 9 really in effect take away the need for us to 10 set up, for example, one possible direction. 11 Whereas, to say that we've got Mr. Singer and 12 others, maybe Sequent, in the background. 13 And rather than a big $90,000 number, it 14 might be more like, I don't know what the 15 number is, 3,000, 5,000. Some other number 16 that they would then act as middle men, if 17 you will, between the request and Nielsen. 18 So that was an option. Again, before I knew 19 of all these other things. 20 So do you think the way you 21 envision it now, that anybody who becomes 22 trained in effect in Tampa, does that take 23 the need away basically, or do we still need 24 to set that up to set up. Because obviously 25 not everybody is going to be a master 157 1 analyst. 2 MR. DONATO: If you have analysts 3 you can do it yourself. If you don't have 4 analysts, you can pay someone to do it. 5 MR. HESS: Okay. And that 6 someone could be someone like a Steve Singer 7 or a Sequent individual and so on. But the 8 fact is you're going to make that data 9 available for those types of cross tabs, et 10 cetera? 11 MR. DONATO: Yes. 12 MR. HESS: Rather than spend a 13 lot of time. 14 MR. ZACKON: Can I ask a question 15 just so we're aware? I mean, prepared to 16 support those analysts. Because my hunch is 17 that's going to take some time on your part. 18 And you would be within your right to bill 19 them for that time. But it's not going to be 20 like a snap thing and they're going to be 21 competent right away without need for further 22 support. 23 MR. DONATO: We're probably in 24 the same position. I think we need to get 25 accustomed to the database and analyze it. 158 1 MR. HESS: To Richard's point. 2 One reason we were going to take that 3 partnership route, we realize you had your 4 hands full these days. And it wasn't clear 5 that we would be able to take advantage of 6 Nielsen analysts. We were thinking third 7 party. You make the data available. So 8 that's why we came prepared. 9 MR. DONATO: Yes. We certainly 10 will take phone calls. And if there's an 11 answer that we can give some people, that 12 would be absolutely fine. I don't think we 13 can actually do people's run. I think that 14 you're in the position to do it with outside 15 analysts. 16 MR. HESS: Any other discussion? 17 A VOICE: Can I chime in to an 18 earlier point on this. So the data will be 19 released and there will be no quality control 20 on? 21 MR. DONATO: I think that's a 22 separate. Whether or not you come up with 23 guidelines for usage or standards, it is a 24 separate issue. And it probably makes sense 25 just to communicate. I mean, if you had a 159 1 guidelines and standards, it says you can 2 make mistakes with this data. If you don't 3 have any kind of policy on this, it kind of 4 communicates a little bit of the Wild West. 5 MR. HESS: Let me put my 6 administrative role in a minute. 7 Beth, is this something you can 8 help out as well, or is this outside the 9 purview? It feels like it might be just 10 outside. I thought I'd might check. 11 MS. UYENCO: You mean -- 12 MR. HESS: Yes. 13 MS. UYENCO: What I've been 14 thinking about is how to be able to manage 15 what might easily be a narrow key. Once you 16 give all that wide access, there are things 17 that we probably can do. But would require 18 some sort of administrative function. 19 So, for example, if we were to 20 allow for wide access, unlimited access, we 21 probably should back that up with some sort 22 of way that people can, users or requesters 23 can actually blog in or write in to the 24 Webinar. And we can see just generally what 25 kinds of analysis and what kinds of problems 160 1 people are having. I mean, to just leave it 2 let's have the data out there available 3 without sort of feedback is going to be a 4 huge -- the potential for disaster there is 5 great. 6 MS. BUSLIK: Okay. I think 7 there's a much bigger issue than that. We're 8 not talking about a tremendous number of 9 responders. And as the data gets cut and 10 sliced away, every client that I have asks 11 for it. I think there's a potential for 12 abuse of the data. And I sort of like the 13 idea that you had first mentioned. That 14 there would be a control. So that not 15 restricting people's use, but helping them 16 use it. 17 MR. HESS: I just wonder then, 18 rather than debate the actual content of what 19 it looks like because of timing, part of the 20 reason I asked Beth the question is I'm 21 trying to get a sense of the right august 22 body to follow up on this. Because we're not 23 going to solve it right now with all the 24 issues on. So I'll volunteer. I have some 25 energy. 161 1 Kate Sirkin, would you be willing 2 because I know you're interested in accessing 3 the data abilities? 4 MS. SHAGRIN: I like the first 5 idea you had in terms of you being Beth's 6 committee. Not to do the work, but to set 7 up. To come back with some recommended 8 guidelines. Maybe we don't have to wait to 9 the next meeting. You can E-mail them. But 10 you have a group of members of the CRE and 11 Nielsen folks who could consider the pros and 12 cons. And perhaps set up some guidelines. 13 MR. HESS: There is actually a 14 certain time fuse on this though. Because 15 this data is not evergreen. It's going to 16 change. Shari said that there's plenty of 17 energy for another set of data. These DVR 18 numbers are going to increase. Some of the 19 other numbers will stay stable. So this is 20 definitely some of those. 21 I assume, Kate, I can speak for 22 you too. That we don't want a committee to 23 slow this down. So if the committee can help 24 and we can actually get access quickly, Paul, 25 you're saying, hey, as soon as somebody comes 162 1 to Tampa, we can train them up. This is one 2 of those things where I'd rather have speed 3 because of the time fuse on the value of the 4 data. 5 MS. SIRKIN: Completely agree. 6 MS. COWAN: Actually, maybe this 7 is one of the things we think about over the 8 fourth of July. 9 MR. HESS: Okay. That fast. I 10 mean I do think we should come, whether it's 11 through an online meeting if we need actually 12 to vote on something. If we form a 13 committee, I'm just trying to get a sense of 14 the way to activate this because of the time 15 fuse. 16 MR. DONATO: And if the training 17 is second week of July, then people can 18 invest in that training. They'll be able to 19 use it thereafter. 20 MS. SIRKIN: I think we should 21 have it ready for either. And then the 22 training can focus on going to the new 23 guidelines. 24 MR. IVIE: I have a quick 25 suggestion. It seems like we're trying to 163 1 invent something that already exists. I 2 mean, Nielsen as a company releases data and 3 complies with certain disclosure 4 requirements. A lot of those reside in our 5 standards. So if you look at the standards, 6 they say things like you should disclose 7 sources of sampling and nonsampling error, 8 potential sources in the product. Talk about 9 minimum reporting standards. Talk about 10 flagging things when or giving people 11 guidance when sample sizes are too small. 12 Talk about whether standard error, relative 13 error can be computed. So you can tie all 14 that to standards that already exist. 15 And actually, Nielsen already 16 complies with it with their existing 17 products. I don't see why we would step 18 outside of that guidance unless we have 19 something to be more cautious about than 20 that. So, I mean, I'd be willing to 21 participate on your committee, but some of 22 this is already invented. 23 MR. HESS: So Kate and George and 24 I are so far on the committee. I'd like to 25 move to the second topic. 164 1 But again, right now I'd rather 2 because we have one other issue to consider, 3 I'd rather not get too deeply into the 4 content. Because I think that is for a 5 committee to do. I realize there are some 6 concerns. Beth, we'll include you as part of 7 the discussion. Maybe not in round 1, but as 8 part of the round 2. Because I think your 9 committee will at least have something to say 10 or make sure there's a good hand-off if one 11 needs to be. 12 Let me know. You don't have to 13 do it now. Anyone else who wants to serve on 14 this committee. And we'll figure out. We'll 15 call it committee to activate the data. 16 Okay, thank you. 17 Now to the last topic. Kate, do 18 you feel, and for everyone else as well, but 19 because we've succeeded in putting Kate on 20 the spot, Kate, do you feel like you want to 21 phrase your comments as a motion? 22 Do you think a couple of minutes 23 of discussion first. I want to make sure 24 that this topic, especially because it does 25 involve frankly an outside group. And I 165 1 think in the past when the AFR made a request 2 maybe two years ago, let's face it, if we go 3 back and read the record there was some 4 negative sentiment there. But that was for a 5 much bigger request. This is a smaller 6 request. 7 So Kate, would you like to make a 8 couple of comments first and then we'll find 9 out if there's a discussion. 10 MS. SIRKIN: I would. I'd like 11 to just clarify exactly what the money is 12 going to go for, who's going to have access 13 to the data. I think that was something that 14 was quite clear in my first comments. 15 The proposal is to get $15,000 16 for a consultant to be this person who has 17 access to this data set who would then be 18 part of the AFR holistic planning group. 19 They would attend the meeting. Do the work 20 as it relates to that data set following the 21 meeting. And then do the follow-up with 22 responses about how the data sets would be 23 used or not used in a specific situation. 24 My guess is what's going to 25 happen is Pete will go from Nielsen to 166 1 Collins at MRI. And various other experts 2 and -- 3 MR. ZACKON: Kate, you're 4 breaking up. 5 MS. SIRKIN: Sorry. See if 6 that's better. 7 So the proposal is to have 8 $15,000. First that we talked about being 9 the committee people was Singer again. So if 10 he has access to the data analyzed and 11 experience analyzing it. It's not like we'd 12 be using the database in the hands of all the 13 people on the committee. And it doesn't 14 work. 15 It's about having a specific 16 approach for one of the questions we want to 17 ask. How come this data set held up. And 18 report back to people, the ARF 360 and the 19 CRE committee. I was pleased to hear Paul 20 say that they're actually also doing work in 21 that area. So, you know, the best most 22 appropriate way to follow it through would 23 have Steve work with Pete and any of the 24 people within Nielsen as a partner to see how 25 the Nielsen database is that today. The 167 1 databases could work together. But I want to 2 stress, to repeat Pauls' comment. It's a 3 trial. It's a test. We're asking questions. 4 It's not the answer. If people are concerned 5 about that, we can set up guidelines and 6 restrictions on what can be and can't be 7 done. 8 So, with that said I'd like to 9 answer any questions before I go on to make a 10 proposal to the committee. 11 MR. SUSSMAN: I have a question. 12 Would the product of this be 13 reported back to the CRE and only the CRE? 14 Is it something that is for the CRE or is 15 this for this group? 16 MS. SIRKIN: We can set the 17 deliverables as we want them. I think 18 absolutely it would come back to the CRE. 19 And then we can vett what was taken back to 20 either the AFR committee or the broader 21 industry. This is a broad industry business. 22 Probably could be a test right now. 23 MR. SUSSMAN: I see it has 24 Nielsen participants. 25 MS. SIRKIN: We can have it small 168 1 groups to be partner on this. I know James 2 volunteered to do it. I'd be happy to do it. 3 Ask to work with other people as well. 4 MR. SUSSMAN: Paul, what do you 5 think as far as it being an industry project 6 that you're involved in or something that 7 actually helps Nielsen? 8 Where do we fit in? Where do you 9 fit in? And where does this stand? 10 MR. DONATO: I can only tell you 11 where we are now. I am aware of the 12 proposal. I am trying to articulate exactly 13 how it would be used as an adjustment factor. 14 I think it's highly unlikely that you'd be 15 able to actually use it as a hub, per se, 16 given six markets and 500 people. 17 However, there could be data in 18 there that could inform in some way as an 19 adjustment factor fusions which occur. I 20 just don't know how to do it yet. So where 21 we are right now is thinking about, given the 22 data we have and given this data and given 23 time diaries, how might I be able to use that 24 to improve fusion. 25 MS. SIRKIN: I think that's my 169 1 sense of it. What is there in the database 2 that would inform our future strategy for 3 building that can work like, as opposed to 4 taking the absolute data results from a 5 survey to date. 6 Is there a particular technique 7 or a way of a set of questions that were 8 requested that would be useful? 9 MR. DONATO: Well, likely go 10 through that analysis, whether or not the AFR 11 doing it. Obviously integration is a big 12 part of our future. So we are going to 13 explore all possible databases that we touch 14 to see whether any of them can help with 15 fusion. 16 MR. SUSSMAN: My sense is that 17 the data is going to be available to anyone 18 that wants to play with it. You're going to 19 be putting it out there if they want to do. 20 Why is the CRE funding that? I don't know 21 what the product for the CRE coming out of 22 that project. 23 MR. DONATO: That's also 24 different from the AFR committee. 25 MS. LIGUORI: I'm not really 170 1 clear enough on what you're talking about to 2 vote yes or no for whatever monies. And 3 would like more details about what exactly 4 the product is. Who's involved, who's not 5 involved. And then make a decision about it. 6 MS. BUSLIK: What are the end 7 objectives of it. 8 MS. SIRKIN: Are you concerned 9 about what work is going to be done over the 10 next few months or what the final product 11 might be? It's hard to hear. The lines are 12 breaking up on your end as well. 13 MR. HESS: You want to repeat 14 that or somebody else? 15 MS. LIGUORI: Basically, like 16 possibly one page that explains what exactly 17 the project is. Who's involved. What the 18 output is. The timetable is not as important 19 to me as understanding what I might be voting 20 yea or nay on. And at this point, you know, 21 there was a lot of breakup even after you 22 picked up the handset. So I'm just not 23 really clear. 24 MR. SUSSMAN: Kate, I'm not sure 25 everybody understands what touch point is. 171 1 MS. SIRKIN: I think it's okay to 2 come back to the group with a more formal 3 proposal. Jane and I will work with that and 4 Shari and Mike and others. And come back so 5 people are actually clear about what they ask 6 is. It makes sense to have a vote. 7 MS. BUSLIK: I also like to know 8 what Nielsen sees of this; the pros and cons. 9 And how they feel that it will eventually be 10 helpful to them. Where they see. 11 MS. SIRKIN: Sorry, I can't hear 12 you, Michele. 13 MR. DONATO: The request was for 14 Nielsen to provide its input on the pros and 15 cons that it sees. And whether it is or it 16 might or not be used, the fusion. 17 MR. HESS: Paul, you work with 18 that committee. Then you can work with Kate 19 or whoever else as they formulate their 20 proposal that would be put to the CRE. 21 Kate, the question I have as 22 we're running out of time, it sounds like 23 there are enough concerns that you have to do 24 a little bit more work on it. But just a 25 quick question. Is there a time value to 172 1 this? In other words, are you willing to 2 wait until the next meeting which I think is 3 in August. 4 MR. ZACKON: September. 5 MR. HESS: September. 6 MS. SIRKIN: Yes. We are fine 7 waiting. Jane and I talked about that. 8 MR. HESS: You are. The 9 alternative being you put something together 10 sooner. And if there would be a time 11 boundary, then we will vote for the online. 12 If you can probably wait that long, might be 13 the best. 14 MR. DONATO: We'll have a more 15 informed position by then. 16 MR. ZACKON: Kate, may I suggest 17 that what you put out, make it clear to the 18 Council what the benefits are to the Council, 19 I think that's what's being asked for. 20 MS. SIRKIN: Okay. 21 MR. HESS: Kate. Thank you very 22 much for formulating that. 23 Any other new business? I think 24 we have two minutes. If not, then we're 25 going to finish two minutes early. 173 1 MR. ZACKON: You need a motion 2 for adjournment. 3 MS. LIGUORI: Mike, I've tried to 4 contact the person who was suggested as the 5 ABC replacement for Henry DeVault. And I've 6 not heard back from her. I don't know what's 7 going on. 8 MR. HESS: Okay, Richard. 9 MR. ZACKON: Just to remind 10 members, there will be between now and the 11 next meeting which is September, the steering 12 committee will be submitting names of new 13 potential members. Is that not right, to be 14 voted on in September to begin with us in 15 December; is that right? 16 MR. SUSSMAN: Yes. 17 MR. HESS: Will you also be 18 reviewing nonattendance as part of that? 19 MR. SUSSMAN: Yes. 20 MR. ZACKON: There needs to be 21 some review. 22 MR. SUSSMAN: I think the 23 steering committee should come together and 24 who was interested in looking at a new map of 25 possible research initiatives for 2010. 174 1 Now's the time to plan that. And especially 2 if the VCM is looking for another wave to 3 weigh that against other ideas. 4 MS. BUSLIK: Anyone has ideas, 5 send it to you. 6 MR. SUSSMAN: Send ideas. 7 MR. HESS: Thank for you a very 8 productive meeting. Have a good summer. 9 A VOICE: Motion to adjourn. 10 MR. HESS: That's right. Let's 11 be real official. I need a motion to 12 adjourn. 13 MS. LIGUORI: I move to adjourn. 14 MR. IVIE: Seconded. 15 MR. ZACKON: Moved and seconded. 16 Ayes, nays. Anyone who wants to linger? 17 There's no nays. We're adjourned. 18 (Whereupon, at 4:00 p.m., the 19 meeting adjourned.) 20 21 22 23 24 25 175 1 C E R T I F I C A T E 2 3 STATE OF NEW YORK ) 4 ) ss. 5 COUNTY OF NEW YORK ) 6 7 I, ROBERT M. LEVINE, a Certified Court 8 Reporter and Notary Public of the State of New 9 York, do hereby certify that foregoing Proceedings, 10 taken at the time and place aforesaid, is a true 11 and correct transcription of my shorthand notes. 12 I further certify that I am neither counsel 13 for nor related to any party to said action, nor 14 in any wise interested in the result or outcome 15 thereof. 16 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my 17 hand this 29th day of June, 2009. 18 19 20 21 ROBERT M. LEVINE, CCR 22 23 24 25