Cumulus Files Suit Against Nielsen
• Cumulus Media has filed suit against ratings giant The Nielsen Company in federal court, accusing it of illegally leveraging its dominance over national and local radio audience data to stifle rivals and charge inflated prices.
As reported by Reuters, the lawsuit, filed on Oct. 16 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, claims that Nielsen was violating federal and state antitrust laws by conditioning access to its national broadcast radio analytics on the purchase of separate, costly local ratings data.
In a statement, a Cumulus spokesperson said, “We are pursuing legal action against Nielsen in response to the recent change in its nationwide policy and other anticompetitive conduct that we believe is unlawful and damaging. As the first company that would be affected by the policy, we’re taking the necessary steps to protect our business and those who depend on it.”
The Cumulus lawsuit states, in part, “While radio stations have persevered through significant challenges by innovating and adapting, Nielsen has flexed its monopoly power and impeded competition from entering the markets for local radio ratings data and national radio ratings data. It has imposed supracompetitive prices — including a unilateral 36% price hike on Cumulus’ national radio ratings data in 2022, and consistent increases in the prices of local radio ratings data — and acted as an illegal monopolist by engaging in coercive conduct, strong-arm negotiation tactics, and restrictive terms. Nielsen has now added another unlawful tactic: creating a policy that conditions access to its indispensable national radio ratings data on the purchase of separate local radio ratings data, which it prices at an uneconomic level. This tying scheme is a textbook abuse of monopoly power.”
Nielsen sells national and local ratings data to networks, which rely on that information to sell advertising. Cumulus buys local ratings data, and its subsidiary Westwood One, which produces national programming and services, purchases national radio ratings data. Cumulus alleges that Nielsen’w sales policy forces it to buy local ratings in markets where it doesn’t need them, or risk losing access to comprehensive national data that Westwood One needs. The Cumulus suit alleges that Nielsen’s sales scheme has affected hundreds of millions of dollars of commerce, and accuses Nielsen of degrading product quality, raising prices without justification and blocking competitors from gaining footholds in the industry.
Cumulus warned that advertisers and radio stations will suffer from reduced choice, inflated costs and diminished innovation if Nielsen’s conduct is allowed to flourish. The lawsuit asked a federal judge to award unspecified monetary damages and to issue a court order stopping Nielsen from continuing allegedly unfair business practices.
In a statement of response, Nielsen told Reuters that the Cumulus lawsuit is “entirely without merit” and “we will respond accordingly.” Read the entire lawsuit HERE.
