Nielsen Asks Appeals Court To Overturn Injunction In Cumulus Ratings Case.

Nielsen is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to overturn the preliminary injunction that temporarily blocked its national radio ratings policy, arguing the lower court improperly forced the company to sell its data on terms dictated by a customer.

In a 57-page opening brief filed Wednesday, Nielsen contends that the district court ruling in favor of Cumulus Media fundamentally misapplies antitrust law and interferes with how Nielsen packages and prices its audience measurement products.

“The district court ordered Nielsen to sell a product that Cumulus wants on terms that the court dictated,” Nielsen writes in the filing, which asks the Second Circuit to vacate the preliminary injunction.

The dispute centers on Nielsen’s national radio ratings product and whether the company can require broadcasters to also purchase local market ratings data. Cumulus filed an antitrust lawsuit last October alleging the policy unlawfully ties national ratings access to the purchase of local ratings services.

Nielsen argues the injunction effectively rewrites the company’s business model and forces it to supply data under conditions it does not offer to other customers. “Antitrust law does not require firms to sell their products on terms dictated by a competitor,” Nielsen says in the brief.

Nielsen also argues that the district court improperly treated a contractual pricing dispute as an antitrust violation. “At bottom, this case concerns a contract dispute about the terms on which Nielsen will sell its products,” the filing says. The company also argues that its national ratings product is built from underlying local ratings data and therefore cannot reasonably be treated as an entirely separate offering.

The filing also disputes the lower court’s conclusion that Cumulus faces irreparable harm — a critical trigger for an injunction. Nielsen says Cumulus’ claims center on negotiating leverage rather than market exclusion. “Cumulus simply does not want to pay what Nielsen is charging,” it argues in the brief.

The appeal comes after U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas issued a preliminary injunction blocking Nielsen from enforcing its Network Policy or effectively tying nationwide access by charging what the court said was a “commercially unreasonable rate” for its national ratings as a standalone product. Nielsen is asking the appellate court to reverse that ruling and vacate the injunction while the broader antitrust case continues to move forward in federal court. That process is likely to take much of 2026 based the case’s current timetable.

In the meantime, the Second Circuit has agreed to fast track the appeal over the injunction. It earlier agreed to place a temporary administrative stay on the lower court ruling while it hear arguments from both sides. Cumulus will now have three weeks to respond to Nielsen’s filing. The company said in court filings that it views the Nielsen policy as a “textbook abuse of monopoly power” that harms competition by preventing radio stations from freely choosing the local radio ratings data providers they want. It said the proposed rate was 10-times what it currently pays and that it left no practical choice but to buy all of Nielsen’s local data.

The dispute has already led Cumulus to lose access to some ratings data, although the extent is not clear. But as the January PPM ratings have been released this week, Cumulus stations have not been included in the data shared publicly.