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erinMedia 'Plans Nielsen Takeover'
The Chairman of US TV ratings company erinMedia says he is considering a takeover of its rival Nielsen Media Research if Nielsen's parent company, VNU, is sold. erinMedia has also announced a second lawsuit against Nielsen Media for false advertising, countering Nielsen's claims that it measures 'millions of viewers'.
VNU is currently considering acquisition bids from private equity firms (www.mrweb.com/drno/news5019.htm ), and erinMedia's Chair, Frank Maggio says he is prepared to take advantage of any sale. 'If one of the rumored consortiums of US investment companies is indeed able to acquire control of VNU's assets, I am prepared to line up the financing to acquire and change Nielsen'.
The new lawsuit, announced yesterday, focuses on a print ad from last October, which stated 'Thousands of shows… millions of different viewers… Nielsen counts them all.' erinMedia argues that the company's national sample is inadequate, and in fact counts less than 9,000 households.
Maggio, says he 'considers the concepts of voting and counting to be almost sacred', and is 'outraged that the Nielsen leadership would ever allow an ad like this to be published'. His company is seeking damages for what it calls 'Nielsen's intentional, willful, and malicious conduct'.
Referring to his own company's audience measurement technology, which uses set top boxes, he claims: 'In reality it is erinMedia, and NOT Nielsen, that can literally count millions of Americans, but the Nielsen monopoly has kept our technology from being adopted by the TV industry.' The alleged monopoly is the subject of erinMedia's ongoing antitrust lawsuit against the company.
Maggio concludes that 'a newly-owned Nielsen would provide true representation to tens of millions of Americans that Nielsen today only falsely claims to count.'
Nielsen has yet to comment on the lawsuit.
erinMedia is online at www.erinMedia.net and Nielsen Media Research at www.nielsenmedia.com.
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