The data industry underrepresents the Hispanic population when it comes to measuring television audiences, according to a study by Truthset, which validates datasets.
Just 58% of the U.S. Hispanic audience is included in the data the industry uses in the second quarter, Truthset said.
In 2022 the U.S. Census found that Hispanics represent 19% of the adult population, or about 50 million people. Missing 40% of that audience means data sets are not accounting for at least 20 million people.
Not including that many people means that advertisers aren’t properly allocating targeted ad spending, Truthset said. Content owners are also missing opportunities to develop more programming for Hispanic viewers.
“Underrepresentation is a crucial issue for the entire data industry, and despite greater investment in marketing to multicultural audiences, accuracy around those datasets has not made significant improvements,” Chip Russo, president and chief revenue officer of Truthset, said. “Until consumer data fairly and accurately reflects the cultural makeup of the population, we’re all falling short of our true capabilities and responsibilities as an industry.”
In the past upfront, Spanish-langauge programmer TelevisaUnivision opted to use Nielsen audience estimates incorporating big data for its upfront sales. Nielsen’s big data stream is not yet accredited by the Media Rating Council, but its Hispanic audiences are about 15% bigger than those reported by Nielsen’s panel data.
Truthset notes that undercounting Hispanic audiences has been going on for a while. Over the past eight quarters, Truthset found that the data industry never accounted for more than 62% of Hispanic viewers.
Truthset works with networks, brands and platforms, providing everything from data validation to audience building and measurement.
Truthset also plays an integral role in data accuracy movements from trade organizations such as Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), Association of National Advertisers’ Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM) and the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF).
