Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group Sues Nielsen For Fraud In Ratings Of Comedy.TV, Weather Channel & Other Networks

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Byron Allen’s media companies — Weather Group, Entertainment Studios Networks (ESN) and CF Entertainment — have sued Nielsen, seeking billions of dollars in damages for alleged fraudulent misrepresentation and fraud by concealment.The suit claims that the way Nielsen has historically measured television viewing for years — through its panel system of recruiting and tracking household viewers — was unreliable for Allen’s ESN networks given their limited distribution.

It alleges the ratings agency knew the measurement was unreliable but concealed the fact to drum up business from Allen Media, which paid millions in fees.Nielsen declined to comment on the suit.“This lawsuit is about Nielsen’s outdated, unreliable and broken television ratings service, and the resulting harm suffered by media companies who rely on Nielsen to sell ad time,” the complaint explains.Nielsen has been under pressure for years to update the way it gathers data and to expand its measurement metrics.

Its troubles deepened during Covid when it had a hard time getting measurement equipment out to the field. The Media Rating Council suspended Nielsen’s accreditation for national TV ratings in September.The suspension applied to Nielsen’s national television service, Local People Meters and Set Meter Markets.

The MRC said such suspensions occur when a company is found to have “material standards non-compliance or operational issues that are deemed to have exerted an adverse effect on the service.” A review of the suspension is under way, however, and Nielsen has promised to start rolling out an enhanced set of measurement tools dubbed Nielsen One by the end of 2022.The networks at issue in Allen’s suit, though, are not the major broadcast and cable