Broadcast news has a measurement problem. PR pros should learn from it.

When thinking about media measurement, there is a risk that your numbers aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.

Even for savvy operators who have abandoned advertising value equivalents and other tools that fail to show the real value of PR, the numbers can be skewed. Or even meaningless.

It’s a point that was driven home on a recent episode of Jon Stewart’s new program “The Problem with Jon Stewart” on Apple TV. In an episode examining the news media, Stewart skewered the outdated ratings model broadcasters try to understand what their audience is interested in.

The problem, according to Stewart, is that ratings still rely on the Nielsen model, where survey takers stand in for the entire national viewership of television programming. This often-unrepresentative data is then packaged into even smaller chunks, minute by minute, showing how audiences are tuning in or tuning out.

Deadline writes:

At one point, Stewart seems surprised when O’Brien informed him that cable news producers see “minute by minute” ratings so they know what stories and topics stoke outrage.