Tampa Radio: Beasley's WBRN DeListed By Nielsen

It now appears that WBRN 98.7 FM morning personality Bubba the Love Sponge got involved in a scheme attempting to inluential listening habits.  That was confirmed by the station's owner Beasley Media Group and has resulted in a delisting by Nielsen Audio ratings service..  The delisting will mean  no WBRN credit will be used for the month of September 2015.

Bubba Clem

The September 2015 PPMs data has been not be released pending the outcome of an investigating by Beasley and Nielsen concerning an attempt to tamper with ratings process.

Bubba was directly contacted by a Tampa market PPM panelist and subsequently Beasley found that Bubba attempted to influence the listening habits of the PPM panelist.  The panelits has now been dropped from the PPM ratings procedure.

The Bubba Clem morning show has not aired for more than week.  It is not known and/or if the show will return to the local airwaves in Tampa.

Beasley issued the following statement:

"Beasley strongly condemns the actions of Mr. Clem.  We are taking appropriate steps to ensure that such conduct does not occur in the future.  These steps include, but are not limited to, compliance training for Mr. Clem and his employees and the distribution of guidelines reiterating the importance of avoiding conduct that could cause ratings distortion, to all Beasley employees."

In a separate statement, Nielsen said the ratings weren't affected in any of the markets.

"Nielsen is committed to maintaining the highest standards of data integrity and will continue to act swiftly to ensure that those standards are upheld, including taking additional measures if circumstances warrant."