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Nielsen Antitrust Charges Dismissed
In the US, antitrust charges brought by Sunbeam Television against Nielsen have been dismissed by a Florida federal judge.
Announced in 2009, the suit alleged that Nielsen used a monopoly to overcharge for services and produced 'defective, wildly inaccurate ratings data' which had reduced the TV station's value by $100m in the last six months. Sunbeam said Nielsen's Local People Meters (LPMs) underreported ratings in ethnically diverse areas including Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
Dismissing the claims, Judge Paul C. Huck said Sunbeam, the owners of South Florida's WSVN-Fox 7 station, had failed to meet the 'initial burden' to bring the case to court by producing sufficient evidence that LPMs were less accurate than the previous diary system, or less accurate than they would be under a prospective competitor's methodology; and had not established the existence of a 'willing and able competitor' for TV ratings supply that Nielsen was blocking from the market.
Sunbeam says it will appeal this ruling, and will continue to litigate on two other claims on which Huck will rule in the next few weeks pending further submissions. These allege that Nielsen has engaged in breach of contract and deceptive and unfair trade practices under Florida law. Judge Huck did allude to 'evidence of exclusionary contracting practices' by Nielsen.
Last September, the two sides were reported to be 'close to resolving the suit' following mandatory mediation. Nielsen had failed in an earlier bid to have it dismissed.
Web sites: www.nielsen.com and www.wsvn.com .
Nielsen previously came through another anti-trust lawsuit raised by Frank Maggio, Chairman of TV ratings company erinMedia, in April 2008. Maggio had alleged that Nielsen Media Research's contracts with 'some or all' of the four largest broadcast companies made it impossible for any competitor to establish a rival TV audience measurement tool.
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