“The Nielsen Company (US) LLC is an undisputed monopolist.” That’s the opening line of the introduction to Cumulus’ latest filing against Nielsen in the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals for the Southern District of New York.
Pretty straightforward, wouldn’t you agree?
If you’re new to this imbroglio, Cumulus sued Nielsen on antitrust grounds because the latter required the former to buy local data for every local Cumulus market. Otherwise, the company couldn’t have access to the entirety of Nationwide, a requirement for selling network radio. There is no other national radio product. Cumulus owns Westwood One, one of the two biggest radio networks.
I continue to run up the bill in my PACER account, which is how to get access to publicly available files from federal court cases. If you want some nice bedtime reading, relax with 57 pages of Hogan Lovells nonfiction work, which could be entitled “Nielsen Bad.”
The reason for this filing is that Judge Vargas, who gave Cumulus a qualified win over Nielsen in the original case, put the case on hold while Cumulus goes through its prepackaged bankruptcy proceeding in the Southern District of Texas Bankruptcy Court. This being the second time around in less than ten years, Cumulus knows how to get the process completed quickly.
While I’ve written previously about some interesting nuggets from the earlier filings, this one has a couple of tasty bites concerning how Nielsen operates, which I assume is based on the discovery process. Not quite TMZ quality, but still…
For example, Cumulus cites Nielsen documents that “included statements like, ‘[we] will drive local subscription through this network policy'” and the policy will allow Nielsen to “command subscriptions in local markets.”
Cumulus’ attorneys also reviewed some elements of the negotiations between the parties. Cumulus states that their people ran a financial analysis, which revealed that in some markets:
“The cost of Nielsen’s local radio ratings data had outstripped the value Cumulus would receive in advertising revenue.”
Let’s think about that statement for a moment. Cumulus determined that the value of Nielsen data in many of their markets doesn’t work on an ROI basis. The filing doesn’t go into the details of the company’s analysis, but let’s dig a bit deeper.
Per the Cumulus corporate website, the company operates in 84 markets. A few of these are small markets where Nielsen does not offer local ratings. We can surmise that Cumulus found Nielsen data to be at least a marginally good investment in perhaps 32 of their markets, because while the number is “blacked out” in the filing, one line is not: “Nielsen would only sell the ‘Swiss cheese’ version of Nationwide, which omitted data from Cumulus’s four dozen other local markets.”
There you have it. It doesn’t make financial sense for Cumulus to buy Nielsen data in a majority of their markets. Some of those markets are easy to identify.
For example, in Los Angeles, Cumulus owns KABC-AM as a standalone. Then there are some small markets that Nielsen continues to measure, but you can imagine that the dollar volume of ratings-based buys is limited compared to the cost of Nielsen data. If you’re not a fan of Cumulus, you might suggest that the company doesn’t know how to use the data to the best effect and could get more value from it. That’s fair, but still — 48 markets don’t make dollars and cents sense?
The Cumulus filing notes that the company still has access to Nationwide until September 2026. Even in bankruptcy — Cumulus’ filing tried to shift some of the blame on Nielsen, but the company’s approximately $700 million in debt was a far bigger factor. Cumulus is requesting that Judge Vargas’ decision be taken off hold and that Nielsen be forced to offer a “reasonable” price for a full Nationwide service along with a limited number of local markets. The rest of the markets would use Eastlan or go without ratings data.
There is another option: if Nielsen is so recalcitrant, why not sell Westwood One? If a buyer could be found that doesn’t own local stations, the problem goes away. Let’s face it: although Cumulus’ network business is not growing, it may still be profitable.
If you track the reported network revenue for Cumulus from 2021 to the present, you’ll find some disturbing trends. Full-year results show revenue down over 30% from 2021 to 2024. While Cumulus did not release a full-year 2025 report, we can view the nine-month performance.
From 2021 to 2025, revenue in the first nine months was down by over 43%. Another way to look at it is that 2021’s nine-month revenue was higher than 2024’s total year. Not exactly a growth business.
Someone else might find a new way to make the Westwood One business grow again — or maybe not. Regardless, is it time to get this issue out of the courts and move on?
Let’s meet again next week.
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