Let’s go back to 1942, when even I wasn’t born yet. The classic movie “Casablanca” was released, starring Humphrey Bogart as Rick and Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa. An oft-quoted line came from Claude Rains, playing the role of Captain Renault, stating, “I’m shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here” in Rick’s club. Almost immediately, a croupier hands Captain Renault some money and says, “Your winnings, sir,” to which he replies, “Oh, thank you very much.” When I read Nielsen’s counterclaim against Cumulus in their ongoing court battle, this scene from “Casablanca” came to mind.
And if you’ve never seen the movie, it’s wonderful (I’ll avoid the continued overuse of “iconic”). Reading the available material filed by Nielsen (so much is redacted, it looks like letters from prison), you can understand the key points being made by the company’s attorneys.
Nielsen states that Cumulus has been a client since 1997. True enough, but the implication (never stated) is that Cumulus has been a continuous client. Sticking with the “Casablanca” theme, let’s channel Sam (Dooley Wilson) singing “You must remember this” — that Cumulus put out an RFP (request for proposals) in 2008 for an alternative service to Arbitron. Specifically, Cumulus management at the time wanted an electronic system for the many smaller markets where the company owned stations.
Yes, Sam, I do remember this clearly, as I was the main author of Arbitron’s response. The company felt a necessity to respond, even though we understood the key reason for Cumulus’ RFP was to find an alternative to Arbitron. Guess what? We didn’t win the RFP.
Cumulus ended up with a diary service from Nielsen. That lasted a couple of years, but few other companies signed up. By the start of 2011, Nielsen was out of the radio ratings business until the company bought Arbitron. The point being that while Cumulus has worked with Nielsen and Arbitron since 1997, there was a two-year hiatus. So this isn’t the first time Cumulus has tried to escape from Nielsen’s clutches.
Let’s get on to the fun part — naming and shaming — specifically the one and only Pierre Bouvard. When I was working with automotive OEMs and others in that space long before DTS AutoStage came along, I’d want people to meet Pierre, Arbitron’s most public face. I always said that in the radio business, he was like Adele, Prince, or Madonna, needing only one name. If you said “Pierre,” everyone knew who you were talking about, with no need to add Bouvard. And everyone liked Pierre as well.
Nielsen’s lawyers have portrayed him as a villain, alleging that he passed along some of Nielsen’s “crown jewels” (their words) to the Germans — oops, I’m sorry, stuck in “Casablanca” mode. I meant to type Eastlan. Admittedly, we’re dealing with lawyers here, but I’d ask a gemologist to check those “crown jewels,” as they may be cubic zirconia these days.
If you’ve ever read a Nielsen contract, or any similar contract, you know there are clear provisions about sharing copyrighted data. In case you don’t know, all Nielsen audience estimates are copyrighted, and the contract specifies acceptable uses of the data under your license from Nielsen. Pretty standard.
The problem is industry practice. If you ask me to believe that no one in the radio industry has ever shared Nielsen or Arbitron data with someone who was not licensed to see it, well, I have a couple of bridges you may be interested in purchasing. And much like Captain Renault, I’m shocked, shocked, that someone would share copyrighted Nielsen Audio data (“Here’s your P25-54 ranker, sir”). That doesn’t make it right, but it’s a typical practice. The better question might be whether Nielsen is “cherry picking” by going after Pierre’s alleged misdeed when this practice has gone on for decades.
There is one line that cannot be crossed. If a non-subscriber uses the data for sales, that company will be in serious trouble. The Nielsen lawyers cited the case of Arbitron Inc. v. Saga Communications, Inc., et al., which concerned unauthorized use of ratings data. Without getting into details, that case was settled with Saga subscribing to Arbitron data in some PPM metros for a period.
Nielsen alleges that the purpose of Pierre’s alleged data sharing with Eastlan was to give that company an idea of what their estimates should look like versus what Eastlan currently produces. That makes sense to a point. But when it comes to Nielsen Audio estimates these days (PPM and diary), the company’s theme song could be House of Pain’s “Jump Around,” because it’s tougher than ever to find consistency. To my mind, some of that is the state of 2026 radio listening, but much of the blame falls on Nielsen methodology. Building a system to align future Eastlan estimates to Nielsen would be very hard to do.
This accusation displays Nielsen’s monopoly market power, which is what Cumulus initially alleged. Agencies expect something resembling consistency in data so that a buy made for a future date will deliver the audience that was expected. Back in my Birch days in the early ’90s, the complaint was that Birch data was different from Arbitron data, so switching was a problem. What’s happening today is the same, demonstrating Nielsen’s market power. If it doesn’t look like Nielsen Audio data, it’s not acceptable as currency.
As the Cumulus-Nielsen saga rolls on, the biggest winners will be the lawyers and their firms. Thinking back to the days of Fly-Ins and industry studies versus today’s court cases, I’ll paraphrase Rick’s famous line to Ilsa: “We’ll always have Columbia.” Here’s looking at you, Nielsen!
Let’s meet again next week.
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