A federal appeals court has affirmed an order preventing Nielsen Holdings Plc from requiring customers who subscribe to its nationwide television and audio ratings data to also purchase its local ratings services, ruling that the company’s tying practices harmed radio station owner Cumulus Media New Holdings Inc., which is now in bankruptcy.
In a Monday opinion written by U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Judge Alison J. Nathan, the court agreed that a lower district court properly credited evidence showing Cumulus would suffer irreparable harm without interim relief.
The decision keeps Nielsen from enforcing the bundled purchase requirement while the underlying antitrust dispute continues.
Cumulus Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year, citing mounting financial pressures that it links in part to Nielsen’s data-pricing practices. Cumulus argued that being forced to buy expensive local ratings data it did not need or want distorted its costs and weakened its competitive position in local markets.
The ruling is a significant victory for Cumulus in its battle against what it describes as anticompetitive bundling. By upholding the injunction, the Second Circuit preserves Cumulus’s ability to access critical national ratings data without the added burden of unwanted local services during its reorganization.
Nielsen’s ratings products are widely used across the media industry to measure audiences and set advertising rates. The case highlights ongoing tensions over how data providers structure their offerings and the impact those decisions can have on smaller or financially distressed broadcasters.