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House committee advances bill limiting state agencies to viewership metrics for ad buys
Summary
A House committee voted to report favorably on House Bill 282, which would prohibit state agencies from relying on third-party media “credibility” or editorial-ranking services when buying advertising and instead require advertising contracts to rely on viewership metrics such as Nielsen ratings.
A House committee voted to report favorably on House Bill 282, which would prohibit state agencies from relying on third-party media “credibility” or editorial-ranking services when buying advertising and instead require advertising contracts to rely on viewership metrics such as Nielsen ratings.
The bill’s sponsor told the committee the change is intended to remove political bias from where state advertising dollars are spent. “This bill … removes any type of bias and just allows them to use a Nielsen rating or viewership rating to … rate where that ad dollars go,” the sponsor said during the committee hearing. The sponsor also said the measure applies only to state agencies.
Committee members discussed examples of third-party services that use editorial judgments to rate outlets, with the transcript naming NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index as examples. A committee member cited a controversy in Florida as evidence that some private media-rating services have at times influenced where public advertising money was placed.
Committee members and the sponsor also clarified that agencies may still target specific demographics or buy advertising in particular publications; the bill would only bar contracting language that directs ad purchases based on a third party’s editorial or political ranking rather than audience/viewership metrics.
Two technical amendments were adopted on the record before the committee vote. One amendment inserts the missing letter to make “news” plural where required; the other strikes a miswritten phrase and replaces it with “viewership.” Committee members noted a separate misspelling of “viewership” elsewhere in the bill that staff said could be corrected without changing intent.
After the amendments were adopted, the committee voted to give House Bill 282 a favorable report as amended. The transcript records members saying “aye” in roll-call fashion; no roll-call vote tally by name was recorded in the transcript excerpt.
No effective date, fiscal note, or specific contracting language beyond the amendments was recorded in the provided transcript excerpt. The transcript also does not record a full vote tally or identify the bill sponsor by name in the excerpt provided.
