Eastlan has become the unlikely pivot point in the legal battle between Cumulus Media and Nielsen, as the test case for whether any true alternative to Nielsen’s national radio ratings exists or whether the measurement giant is a bona fide monopoly.
Ongoing since October in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Cumulus lawsuit identifies Eastlan as the only remaining measurement firm positioned to challenge Nielsen in local markets, and one Cumulus says has been systematically blocked from scaling into national ratings.
Cumulus’s latest filings argue that Eastlan’s limitations underscore a total lack of competition. In its filings, the company asserts that “Eastlan does not operate in the market for national radio ratings data and it does not have a product comparable to Nationwide.” The complaint calls Eastlan’s limited footprint symptomatic of market foreclosure. To Cumulus, national radio measurement is a separate, indispensable market where Nielsen stands alone.
Eastlan CEO Mike Gould’s testimony reinforces that claim. He confirmed that Eastlan “does not currently offer a national ratings service,” though it “could develop a ‘nationwide-like product’ in one year if it had a customer or customers willing to cover the cost of collecting the data.” Cumulus calls that the critical distinction: capability, it argues, is not competition. The filing adds that Eastlan’s strength lies in smaller diary markets, often where Nielsen has withdrawn, leaving little overlap that could foster real head-to-head competition.
Cumulus also highlights the structural barriers that prevent Eastlan from expanding. Gould acknowledged that even with a national product, Eastlan would face “pushback from advertisers and advertising agencies for the foreseeable future.” Many agencies, he said, are effectively “Nielsen-only shops” because Nielsen remains “the currency with advertisers and agencies” and “how advertising is primarily traded.” Beyond perception, Cumulus notes that Eastlan’s data cannot currently transact on key buying systems like Act 1 and Mediaocean—platforms that “only accept Nielsen data as input.” The result, Cumulus argues, is both structural and cultural foreclosure.
The company further contends that even Eastlan’s lower prices and hybrid methodology, combining e-diaries and telephone interviews to yield broader, more representative samples, cannot overcome the market’s dependence on Nielsen data. Until those platforms and buyers accept alternative inputs, Cumulus maintains, Nielsen’s Nationwide remains the only system through which national radio inventory can be bought, sold, or verified. Eastlan’s unrealized ambitions, it says, are both evidence and casualty of that gatekeeping power.
Nielsen, meanwhile, casts Eastlan’s absence from the national market as voluntary. The company argues that Eastlan’s recent expansion into larger local markets shows it is “entering and succeeding” where it chooses to compete, and that this potential for entry is itself proof of active competition. If demand existed, Nielsen says, Eastlan could build a national product.
Cumulus calls that argument hypothetical. The case, it insists, must be judged on the market “as it stands – not as it might someday look.” Without a functioning national ratings product from Eastlan, Cumulus maintains that Nationwide remains an unavoidable input for any network seeking to compete for national ad dollars.
As the record stands, Eastlan is not planning, marketing, or offering a nationwide ratings service. Its role in the case is evidentiary rather than competitive; invoked by Nielsen as a potential constraint and cited by Cumulus as proof that no real alternative exists. Whether the court treats Eastlan’s unrealized capability as meaningful competition, or dismisses it as speculative, may determine how national radio measurement is defined and regulated going forward.
