Susan Whiting: Facing the Changes
According to Susan Whiting, Executive Vice-President of the Nielsen Company and the alpha female of the Nielsen Media Research, the mobile platform is making a deep impact on the industries it will affect, which is practically almost everything. With people’s increasing usage of mobile mediums for communication and entertainment, Whiting decided to change how Nielsen’s dependable and traditional modes gathered data and media ratings in 2005.
In trying to improve the system because of the changes looming in the horizon, Susan Whiting received some flak from the Nielsen Company’s clients. Her courage during that time was laudable — she stood her ground against Rupert Murdoch as well as the House of Congress, to whom she testified on behalf of Nielsen. Her steadfastness paid off however, as she won the case.
Susan Whiting explains in her speech entitled The Challenge of Change that the overhauling of the Nielsen Company’s rating and monitoring schemes were not the answers to the changes happening to TV viewership — they were essential steps needed to be taken by Nielsen and the affected industries in order to move forward.
Whiting eloquently discussed in her speech that as the umpire of the ratings industry, improvements must be made if unbiased assessment of audience shares is to be delivered, no matter how radical they may seem.
Clearly, Susan Whiting is a risk-taker. As Theodore Roosevelt pointed out, “It is common sense to take a method and try it, if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
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