Byron Allen sues Nielsen, claiming it misrepresented its ratings service

Media mogul Byron Allen is suing Nielsen, claiming the scores firm was not forthcoming concerning the reliability of its viewers measurement information for smaller TV networks.

The go well with filed Wednesday within the Circuit Court docket of Cook dinner County, Sick., mentioned Nielsen dedicated fraud when it agreed to supply scores to Allen’s Leisure Studio Networks, a gaggle of seven area of interest TV channels which have restricted distribution on cable and satellite tv for pc methods.

Viewers ranges for smaller networks are tougher to measure and usually tend to be topic to errors.

Allen’s go well with lands at a time when New York-based Nielsen has been below assault from its dissatisfied shoppers who use Nielsen scores information to set promoting charges. Some media corporations, resembling NBCUniversal, have begun to make use of different providers for viewers measurement.

The accuracy of the corporate’s information — drawn from a pattern of 40,000 houses geared up to measure viewing habits — has been questioned all through the media business in recent times as viewers more and more flip to streaming providers for his or her video content material.

Nielsen needed to admit that it undercounted TV viewing through the pandemic as COVID-19 well being protocols saved the corporate from updating its panel of houses. The corporate additionally acknowledged it undercounted out-of-home viewing from September 2021 via January 2022. Media corporations say the discrepancies have price them thousands and thousands of {dollars} in advert income.

The lawsuit cites a litany of criticisms and issues Nielsen has confronted in recent times. However the crux of Allen’s criticism is that Nielsen persuaded executives at his firm so as to add his Leisure Studios Networks channels to its current contract in 2017, including “important charges” to what was already being paid (Allen additionally owns the Climate Channel and almost two dozen network-affiliated TV stations) they usually had been sad with the outcomes.

Nielsen executives allegedly instructed the corporate that the viewers for ESN channels might be reliably counted, though that they had restricted distribution (the go well with doesn’t state the present variety of households the channels attain), and that the depend would in the end profit advert gross sales. “These representations had been, and are, false,” the go well with mentioned.

Leisure Studios started receiving scores information for the channels in 2017. The corporate mentioned its personal inner information confirmed that Nielsen’s studies “didn’t seize” the viewers viewing the channels, which embrace Comedy.TV, Recipe.TV, Automobiles.TV, Pets.TV, MyDestination.TV, ES.TV and JusticeCentral.TV. The corporate alleges its viewing information for the Climate Channel is inaccurate as properly, as its viewers has shrunk due to elevated competitors.

A consultant for Nielsen declined to touch upon Allen’s go well with.

Allen beforehand had a long-running authorized battle with Comcast Corp. The mogul alleged racism by the cable juggernaut, saying it refused to supply his TV channels in its cable bundles as a result of he’s Black. Comcast disputed the declare.

The 2015 go well with, which reached all the best way to the U.S. Supreme Court docket, was settled in 2020 for undisclosed phrases.