Mediation between Sport 927 and Nielsen’s called off

A mediation session over a survey dispute between Melbourne’s Sport 927 and Nielsen Media Research, which was set down for yesterday, has been postponed to a date to be set.

Sport 927’s Noel Crowe told radioinfo that the last minute postponement of the mediation, which was hoped would settle the parties’ grievances and prevent the issue going to court, was called by Nielsen’s.

“We were told that the reasons for the postponement was that Nielsen’s didn’t feel that they had been given a full statement of claim and that they needed time to bring out their in house counsel from the US,” said Crowe.

As reported previously, Crowe believes he has documents to prove his station was intentionally disadvantaged by Nielsen Media Research and Commercial Radio Australia after Sport 927 withdrew from the ratings.

“We are in receipt of documents that, in our view, indicate they knew that by delisting non-participating stations from the survey books, we would be under reported as a consequence,” says Crowe. For a full background, (see radioinfo’s earlier story)

Crowe has told radioinfo: “We’re 100% confident in our position and very much look forward to our day in court. We expect this to be a very public case, which will severely embarrass the entire radio industry.”

Although Crowe will not reveal what the documents are or where they have come from, he insists they are “red hot”.

Nielsen Media Research has previously told radioinfo that it does not intend to make public comment on these claims.