black and Hispanic viewers. The reasons for this alleged undercount are unknown. This not the first time that the Nielsen's have been criticized for undercounting minority audiences, in fact it has been a consistent theme for a number of years. Of course, Nielsen is a private corporation, and no one can force Nielsen to use particular means and methods of measurement. Prominent politicians like Clinton and the head of the NAACP can complain and try to influence Nielsen, but there is not much they can do legally. Nielsen isn't perfect, but it is a business and must respond to business pressures. The broadcasters and cable channels that purchase Nielsen ratings are also businesses that must be responsive to the public. So what happens in a government-mandated alternative compensation system that includes ratings? Often, these systems claim that they will reward artists based on some sort of Nielsen-like rating system. Will Nielsen still be independent then? Will Clinton, rather than simply complain, pass laws telling Nielsen how it will count the audience for particular works? If a large percentage of artist compensation is coming through a government-mandated system, will that system be able to remain independent of politics? The Blogdigger Development Blog has some interesting updates on their integration of broadcatching. One obvious problem is that promiscuous use of broadcatching can lead to your system trying to download more media than makes sense ( Radio and BitTorrent ): So for the second moring in a row, I logged on to my