Tampa Radio: Bubba Needs More Discovery Time

This week lawyers for WBRN 98.7 FM and Syndicated peronsality Bubba The Love Sponge filed for an extension in the $1M lawsuit filed against him and his Bubba Radio Network by Nielsen Audio.

Nielsen has accused Bubba of ratings tampering in Tampa and his atorneys claim the ratings firm has "dumped" almost 75,000 documents on his legal team.  They say they need more time to examine them properly in order to mount a defense during a January 2017 trial.  They also allege Nielsen is not playing fair because documents were not organized or labeled in any way.

Bubba is asking the court for a 30-day extension of the discovery cutoff, which is December 9, until January 9, 2017. His legal team claims that many documents were labeled confidential without regard for whether they are or not. Additionally, they claim that Nielsen redacted several of the documents without providing a privilege log.

Bubba is also blaming Nielsen for not giving him adequate time to complete depositions, evaluate the redactions and to prepare and file motions regarding its discovery requests. Plus, they claim that due to the document dump, expert witnesses have not been provided adequate time to form their opinions and compile their reports.

On September 21, 2015, Nielsen Audio confronted Beasley Media, owned of WBRN, with all of its evidence that Bubba's attempted to distort the ratings. Beasley responded by suspending Bubba's live show for 8 days on WBRN-FM, although it continued to air Bubba's broadcasts on its other stations,

Nielsen Audio says in the filing that it had also incurred significant out-of-pocket costs and expenses as a direct result of fefendants' acts. To eliminate any conceivable bias in favor of WBRN-FM, Nielsen Audio de-listed Beasley's station WBRN from its September 2015 and October 2015 Reports.