16 Mar Weather Channel Owner Sues Nielsen Over Allegedly Undercounting Ratings on Smaller Networks

By Winston Cho

CF Entertainment, owned by Byron Allen’s media group, alleges Nielsen concealed a flaw in its system that prevents it from reliably rating smaller networks.

The Weather Channel’s owner claims Nielsen cannot reliably rate smaller networks and concealed the flaw in its system it to maintain its dominance on ratings services.

CF Entertainment on Wednesday sued The Nielsen Company for fraud, arguing the ratings giant provides a fundamentally defective service that has caused networks to lose billions of dollars in ad revenue. CF, which is owned by Byron Allen’s media group, alleges ratings on its network and other similarly situated companies were undercounted by hundreds of millions of viewers.

“Nielsen is the most well-known television ratings service providers in the country, but it relies on an antiquated panel system to estimate television viewership,” reads the complaint. “This is a crude tool that does not reliably measure television viewership in the Twenty-First Century.”