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Who’s Winning, Nielsen or Cumulus?
Radio World has been following the legal battle over radio research data between Nielsen and Cumulus Media. Here, Jerry Del Colliano summarizes the latest developments and what they mean.
The author is publisher of Inside Music Media, where this commentary first appeared. Subscription info can be found here.
An appeals court has stayed the previous injunction, allowing Nielsen to continue enforcing its bundled ratings policies while the legal battle proceeds.
This ruling is a major strategic shift in how power is balanced between broadcasters and data providers. There are major implications for Cumulus, the radio industry and their leading ratings company.
Between the lines
Nielsen regains its “leverage” — Nielsen can resume its Network Policy. Before this stay, a judge told Nielsen they couldn’t force Cumulus to buy local ratings just to get national ones. Now that restriction is gone. Nielsen can once again tell broadcasters: “If you want our national data, you have to pay for our local data in every market you’re in.”
The “Swiss Cheese” threat is paused — Nielsen argued that without this policy, their national data would become like “Swiss cheese,” full of holes where broadcasters refused to pay for local tracking. They even threatened to retire the “Nationwide” product entirely rather than sell a version that was incomplete.
For now the “gold standard” of radio measurement is safe from being discontinued, but it remains tied to Nielsen’s pricing demands.
A blow to competitors like Eastlan — Cumulus reportedly wanted to use Eastlan Ratings for its local markets while keeping Nielsen for national reach (Westwood One). This stay effectively shuts the door on “mixing and matching” for the time being, making it much harder for smaller ratings companies to gain a foothold in markets where Nielsen-owned broadcasters are now forced back into the Nielsen ecosystem.
Status Quo is the new reality — In legal terms, a “stay pending appeal” is a way for the court to keep things exactly as they were before the lawsuit started. The court isn’t saying Nielsen is “right” yet; they are saying that changing the industry’s billing structure while the case is still being fought would cause too much “irreparable” harm to Nielsen’s business model.
High stakes for negotiations — Cumulus and Nielsen are currently in a period of intense contract negotiations for 2026. With the injunction lifted, Cumulus has lost its biggest bargaining chip. They are back at the negotiating table facing Nielsen’s full market power. They can no longer point to a court order to demand “reasonable standalone pricing.”
Meanwhile we’ve confirmed that some Cumulus markets are no longer allowed to use Nielsen ratings — they have reportedly been told not to discuss it with anyone driven by the lawsuit in progress.
What it means
No Nielsens will definitely not help Cumulus with Q1/Q2 sales.
Nielsen’s revenue has been declining, begging the question why are these two financially ailing companies even suing each other.
Cumulus is likely headed to bankruptcy again after exiting their first bankruptcy in 2022. Nielsen has been crushed by roughly $11 billion in debt, with interest payments alone costing the company over $900 million annually.
Nielsen has been aggressively raising prices and enforcing strict licensing bundles — the very tactics at the heart of the Cumulus lawsuit — as it desperately tries to stabilize its cash flow and prove to its private equity owners that its measurement monopoly is still profitable.
The bottom line: This is a high-stakes “mutually assured destruction.”
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