2015 Story Update Class Action Lawsuit
The People v Nielsen Ratings, Robert A. Brilliant, Hotbox Event Marketing and Adam Noah Brilliant et.al
To contact us CONFIDENTIALLY email classaction@mofolaw.com
As many of you know, our firm has been investigating the firm of Robert Brilliant, a Market Research Firm based in California. After hundreds of hours of interviews, we have determined that there is and was a conspiracy by this firm and its principals Robert Brilliant and Adam Noah Brilliant to provide false and misleading data to NBC Universal Television and Nielsen Ratings based upon a complex scheme to defraud vendors and advertisers on the NBC Network of Channels. This issue is now the subject of a formal probe by the US Government and the FBI as well as the FCC. This is only a partial statement from one of the witnesses who has been employed by the defendant(s)
(see tape 13 at 34b)
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM FROM A SENIOR MANAGER AT ROBERT A. BRILLIANT's OFFICE (Without supporting Legal Documents for Criminal Case)
Mr. Robert Paisola,
Just a few things. Thank you for your work in exposing this fraud. I am an employee of Robert A. Brilliant that recently left the company. I received the Class Action Documents that you sent from your law office. Please be aware that it was not only Jimmy Kimmel but all the tv pilots, and ad testing came with a 25% max of AA's (African American) (BLACK PEOPLE) allowed per study. For networks like the SyFy Chanel and USA Network (both owned by NBC) it was even smaller and included all ethnicities (hispanic, asians, blacks, others or mixed). We would jokingly refer to them as "whites only" studies.
On a side note. I am not sure if NBC realizes just what they have been paying for over the last 5-7 years to Robert A. Brilliant or if they even care. I would say on in an average testing of a show somewhere in the range of 25% up to 40% of the numbers received are doctored in some way. We would make older people young and younger people old to fit in the demographics needed for NBC. We would change age, gender, race and states in order to get jobs done fast and get them billed. This was done on a routine basis by Adam Brilliant, My Staff and the Staff of Robert A Brilliant. This is most likely why I received an FCC Subpoena.
(Yes, This is why you got the subpoena because the data that was being provided at the Las Vegas and Orlando Sites was bogus data and was obtained in a conspiracy to defraud advertisers) This is why the FBI is now involved.)
Now NBC is paying a lot of money and has an exclusive deal with Robert A. Brilliant Inc. One would think since they have been the last place network for so many years that someone in the executive offices might want to rethink their marketing. We had a whole system set up on how to change things before setting down a tourist to take a survey. We used codes on the paperwork and hand signals among the inside staff.
(This is now MUCH BIGGER THAN A SIMPLE CIVIL RIGHTS MATTER because the advertisers used this data that was DOCTORED to sell Advertising on an INTERNATIONAL BASIS for NBC and its Affiliates)
I also worked for Test America (CRG Global) located inside Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas Nevada. They were just as bad. We would have homeless people take surveys all day long, doing movie trailers for Nielsen Ratings. They would even have the staff do 5 or more surveys in a shift to get work done and bill the client.
(This is now MUCH BIGGER THAN A SIMPLE CIVIL RIGHTS MATTER because the advertisers used this data that was DOCTORED to sell Advertising on an INTERNATIONAL BASIS for Nielsen Ratings and its Affiliates)
Believe me when I tell you it's true. So much bullshit,so many fake and flat out phony surveys that are sold back to the networks and other big name clients for big time money.
Yes, America, This is only ONE of the people you will meet in our Dateline Special.
Robert A. Brilliant, God Help You, Because YOU AND YOUR SON ADAM NOAH BRILLIANT ARE GOING TO FEDERAL PRISON.
(End of Excerpt)
The case is New Delhi Television Ltd. v. Nielsen Holdings NV et al., case number 652589/2012, in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, First Judicial Department.
The case is New Delhi Television Ltd. v. Nielsen Holdings NV et al., case number 652589/2012, in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, First Judicial Department.
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| Robert Paisola Investigative Journalist @RobertPaisola robert.paisola@mofolaw.com |
Sources:
NBC.COM
FCC.GOV
FBI.GOV
Caesars Entertainment Company (CZR)
Ballys Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas
MOFO.COM
RobertPaisola.com
The Hollywood Reporter
MUMBAI, India — A leading Indian television network has sued the Nielsen Company, accusing its Indian joint venture of providing “false, fabricated and manipulated data” on TV ratings for almost a decade.
The Indian network, New Delhi Television, or NDTV, says the manipulated data cost it nearly a billion dollars in advertising revenue, and the suit is seeking several billion dollars in damages.
The company filed the suit late last week in New York State Supreme Court against Nielsen; its Indian joint venture, TAM Media Research; and Kantar Media Research, which owns a 50 percent stake in the Indian business.
NDTV, which is best known for broadcasting a 24-hour English-language news station, accuses employees of TAM of manipulating ratings in exchange for kickbacks from other TV networks. It further says that Nielsen, TAM and Kantar executives did not move to address the problems when NDTV presented “evidence of corruption and manipulation” to them earlier this year in several meetings, some of which were attended by senior Nielsen and Kantar executives.
TAM declined to comment on the case. A spokeswoman for NDTV, Renee Chandola, also declined to comment.
India’s TV business has boomed in the 20 years since the government allowed private companies into broadcasting, with dozens of channels offering news, entertainment and sports programming. But many Indian TV networks, some of which are owned by politicians and corporate tycoons, earn little or no profit, analysts say, because of fierce competition among them.
NDTV, which competes with more than a dozen big news channels, lost 260 million rupees ($4.7 million) in the three months that ended June 30, more than the 179 million rupees it lost in the same period a year earlier. The company’s stock closed at 53.20 rupees (about 96 cents) on Tuesday, down from a record high of 499 rupees in early 2008.
TAM, which was created from the 1998 merger of two competing ratings firms owned by Nielsen and Kantar, has been accused of providing incorrect ratings data in the past by an Indian newsmagazine, Outlook, and one of the country’s biggest TV networks, Zee. Still, it remains the definitive source of ratings in the country and its data is used by Indian advertisers and networks to price airtime.
In its suit, NDTV accuses the defendants of fraud, negligence, misrepresentation, conspiracy and other offenses. The company argues that TAM ratings were easily manipulated because the company collected data only on the TV watching habits of 8,150 homes equipped with electronic monitoring devices. By comparison, NDTV argues the sample size for TV ratings in China, a country of comparable size to India, is 55,000 homes. NDTV said it asked TAM to collect data from at least 30,000 homes, but was rebuffed because the ratings firm said that would be too expensive.
NDTV said two field employees of TAM met its executives at a Mumbai Ramada hotel in April and offered to help the channel lift its ratings if it agreed to pay them $250 to $500 for each home that they got to watch NDTV’s channels. NDTV said it had a security firm photograph that meeting. It recorded another “sting operation” on video, which it later showed to a Nielsen security executive visiting from the United States, Robert Messemer. It also introduced Nielsen executives to a consultant who said he was a go-between for TV channels in their dealings with TAM employees.
The Hollywood Reporter reported on the NDTV lawsuit on Monday.
India TV Network Wants Nielsen To Face Corruption Suit In NY
Law360, New York (October 17, 2013, 5:24 PM ET) -- A New York court should decide if Nielsen Holdings NV should answer for the pervasive corruption and monopolistic behavior at the Indian joint venture that implemented its ratings process, an Indian television news network's attorney told a state appeals court Thursday.
Thomas Souther of Pepper Hamilton LLP, who represents New Delhi Television Ltd., told an appeals court panel in Manhattan that a trial court judge was wrong to rule there wasn't enough of a connection to New York to keep the allegations — that Nielsen's affiliates in India had demanded bribes in exchange for ratings, tried to monopolize the ratings market in India and corrupted the Nielsen television ratings process — in the Big Apple.
Souther said that when NDTV told Nielsen about its concerns with the ratings company in India — TAM Media Ventures Private Ltd., a joint venture of Nielsen and U.K.-based WPP PLC subsidiary Kantar Group Ltd. — Nielsen's headquarters in New York dispatched high-level investigators to India and even hauled evidence and computers back to New York to review.
"This is a case about promises and made and broken by Nielsen, a New York company," Souther told the five-judge panel during a hearing in Manhattan.
But a lower court judge, O. Peter Sherwood, had dismissed the case in March because he said it belonged in India, where TAM is based and where he said the majority of the alleged conduct occurred.
Souther told the panel Thursday that Judge Sherwood's finding was based on "a fundamental disconnect" that the case was about TAM, when in fact the claims that the NDTV had brought against Nielsen could only be brought in New York because there's no jurisdiction in India against the American entities.
But Aidan Synnott of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP, who represents Nielsen, said virtually everything about the case tied it to India and that NDTV should be suing TAM.
TAM, an Indian company, was the one that implemented the Nielsen ratings process and sold the ratings data to an Indian television network; nearly all of the relevant witnesses and evidence are with TAM; the investigation was done in India; and only one New York-based employee was dispatched to the subcontinent, he said.
"TAM is clearly a necessary party. Tam is clearly, if there is a bad party here, the bad party," Synott told the five-judge panel.
He said that experts in the case didn't have enough information to say definitively if Nielsen could be hauled into the courts in India. He also noted that NDTIV had dropped Kantar, which Judge Sherwood had dismissed, on the appeal.
Justices Helen E. Freedman, Richard T. Andrias, Peter Tom, David Friedman and Darcel D. Clark sat on the state appeals court panel.
ND TV is represented by Thomas Souther of Pepper Hamilton LLP.
Nielsen is represented by Aidan Synnott of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP.
The case is New Delhi Television Ltd. v. Nielsen Holdings NV et al., case number 652589/2012, in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, First Judicial Department.
--Editing by Rebecca Flanagan.
Thomas Souther of Pepper Hamilton LLP, who represents New Delhi Television Ltd., told an appeals court panel in Manhattan that a trial court judge was wrong to rule there wasn't enough of a connection to New York to keep the allegations — that Nielsen's affiliates in India had demanded bribes in exchange for ratings, tried to monopolize the ratings market in India and corrupted the Nielsen television ratings process — in the Big Apple.
Souther said that when NDTV told Nielsen about its concerns with the ratings company in India — TAM Media Ventures Private Ltd., a joint venture of Nielsen and U.K.-based WPP PLC subsidiary Kantar Group Ltd. — Nielsen's headquarters in New York dispatched high-level investigators to India and even hauled evidence and computers back to New York to review.
"This is a case about promises and made and broken by Nielsen, a New York company," Souther told the five-judge panel during a hearing in Manhattan.
But a lower court judge, O. Peter Sherwood, had dismissed the case in March because he said it belonged in India, where TAM is based and where he said the majority of the alleged conduct occurred.
Souther told the panel Thursday that Judge Sherwood's finding was based on "a fundamental disconnect" that the case was about TAM, when in fact the claims that the NDTV had brought against Nielsen could only be brought in New York because there's no jurisdiction in India against the American entities.
But Aidan Synnott of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP, who represents Nielsen, said virtually everything about the case tied it to India and that NDTV should be suing TAM.
TAM, an Indian company, was the one that implemented the Nielsen ratings process and sold the ratings data to an Indian television network; nearly all of the relevant witnesses and evidence are with TAM; the investigation was done in India; and only one New York-based employee was dispatched to the subcontinent, he said.
"TAM is clearly a necessary party. Tam is clearly, if there is a bad party here, the bad party," Synott told the five-judge panel.
He said that experts in the case didn't have enough information to say definitively if Nielsen could be hauled into the courts in India. He also noted that NDTIV had dropped Kantar, which Judge Sherwood had dismissed, on the appeal.
Justices Helen E. Freedman, Richard T. Andrias, Peter Tom, David Friedman and Darcel D. Clark sat on the state appeals court panel.
ND TV is represented by Thomas Souther of Pepper Hamilton LLP.
Nielsen is represented by Aidan Synnott of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP.
The case is New Delhi Television Ltd. v. Nielsen Holdings NV et al., case number 652589/2012, in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, First Judicial Department.
--Editing by Rebecca Flanagan.
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