Cumulus Media says Nielsen is violating federal law. It alleges that the ratings company has used coercive conduct and strong-arm negotiation tactics to harm radio broadcasters.
A suit was filed Friday by Cumulus in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. It claims that Nielsen holds a monopoly over national radio ratings and has implemented a policy that will force broadcasters to purchase local radio ratings from Nielsen rather than from a ratings competitor.
A Nielsen spokesperson told Radio World that it is aware of Cumulus’ filing. Nielsen believes the suit “is entirely without merit” and the company said it will respond accordingly.
Cumulus is the third-largest commercial American radio group by revenue. It owns approximately 400 stations in about 80 markets in the U.S. Its Westwood One arm produces national programming and has thousands of affiliates.
Cumulus argues that a new Nielsen “tying” policy is illegal, forcing its local stations to buy Nielsen’s local radio ratings data rather than from a competing service.
The tying policy, according to Cumulus, states that any radio operator with local stations that also owns a national network must purchase Nielsen’s local ratings data for all those local markets in order for the network to receive credit in Nielsen’s comprehensive national data.
“Such tying is a classic abuse of monopoly power and a clear-cut violation of the antitrust laws,” Cumulus states, and “violates Section Two of the Sherman Act.”
Nielsen is the only provider of national radio ratings data, according to the lawsuit.
By not including Westwood One in national ratings in markets where Cumulus doesn’t buy local ratings, the suit states, Nielsen harms the network’s ability to sell ad inventory, jeopardizing relationships with clients and hurting affiliate stations.
Cumulus says Eastlan Ratings offers local radio ratings data at lower prices with larger and more representative data samples.
It told the court that that national and local radio ratings data are separate markets, purchased by distinct customers for different purposes.
Nielsen has “100% market share and monopoly power” in the national radio ratings data market, it said, and it has dominant market power in the local radio ratings data markets, being the sole provider in 75 of 80 relevant regions. Its new policy “is an illegal tie that exploits its monopoly in national ratings to coerce the purchase of local ratings,” excluding competitors like Eastlan, Cumulus believes.
It believes that Westwood One could lose comprehensive national ratings data beginning with Nielsen’s spring 2026 ratings book. The effects could be felt even sooner given that content providers and advertisers are now seeking contracts for 2026.
“If Westwood One does not have access to complete national radio ratings data because of Nielsen’s Tying Policy, some advertisers, advertising agencies and content and service providers will sign contracts with someone else,” the filing states.
Cumulus says local and national ratings products should be viewed as individual products to be used differently and by distinct customers. For example, a national network, national advertising agency or national advertiser would not purchase local radio ratings data from every market and aggregate the data.
It said Nielsen decided in September 2024 to implement the tying policy. Its filing includes details of a conversation between several Cumulus representatives and Rich Tunkel, Nielsen’s audio managing director, in which Cumulus alleges Tunkel admitted that a national ratings product would not be the “real” nationwide product unless Cumulus succumbed to the new policy.
According to Cumulus, Tunkel acknowledged that such a product would “have holes,” be “Swiss cheese” and not “useful.”
Cumulus sent a cease-and-desist letter to Nielsen this August stating that the policy was anticompetitive. It says Nielsen “attempted to paper over the violation rather than correct it,” by offering its nationwide product to the company but at nearly 10 times the price.
“Nielsen’s offer of nationwide at a prohibitive price nearly 10 times the current rate is a constructive tie with the same anticompetitive effect,” Cumulus alleges. “It only confirms Nielsen’s coercive monopoly power.”
Cumulus also points to Nielsen’s “Subscriber First” policy, implemented in 2022, that it says forced stations to purchase Nielsen’s “overpriced local radio ratings data” if they wished to appear in the local summary-level data purchased by advertisers and agencies. This coerced stations into purchasing Nielsen’s local ratings instead of Eastlan’s, Cumulus stated.
The company also believes Nielsen’s service has deteriorated despite price increases over the years. It cites more than 50 notifications of “service issues” in its markets so far in 2025. “Rather than lower its prices or improve its products to better compete, Nielsen instead resorted to illegal monopolistic behavior,” Cumulus says.
The civil action includes a request for declaratory judgment, injunctive relief and a jury trial.
Other voices
A former FCC commissioner is supporting Cumulus’ argument through an official court filing. Harold Furchtgott-Roth writes that Nielsen’s recent actions are evidence of the exercise of market power and anticompetitive conduct.
Furchtgott-Roth, who has a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University, says that from an economic perspective, tying is considered anticompetitive when a firm uses its market power in the tying product to coerce customers into purchasing a tied product in an otherwise more competitive market, and this tying adversely affects competition.
“It is clear that, under Nielsen’s tying arrangement, Cumulus and other customers of local radio ratings data do not have alternatives to Nielsen’s products,” Furchtgott-Roth says in his analysis of the Cumulus case.
Furchtgott-Roth, a Republican, served on the FCC from 1997 to 2001.
Separately, industry observer Jerry Del Colliano, publisher of Inside Music Media, commented on the suit in a post: “Cumulus only wants to buy the national ratings for its network business — but, according to the lawsuit, Nielsen’s rule is basically ‘If you want the national ratings, you also have to buy our local ratings too,’” he wrote. “Nielsen says the products are part of one integrated service, not a forced tie-in.”
Del Colliano wrote that Cumulus is “effectively texting the waters” for the rest of the radio business.
He noted that iHeartMedia, the largest U.S. radio company, is in a similar situation in that its Premiere Networks depends on Nielsen’s national ratings. Thus iHeart “has the same potential grievance”. But he noted that iHeart is Nielsen’s largest customer. “Suing your data lifeline isn’t a move tha a company that size makes lightly.”
