AGB Nielsen also files legal case amid TV ratings war

Amid the continuing television network war over alleged rigged ratings that has turned into a court battle, ratings firm AGB Nielsen Media Research Philippines has also taken legal action to protect its business.

Yesterday, AGB filed before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 80 under Judge Charito Gonzalez a motion for protective order, which seeks to put a stop to calls for its panel home members to come forward and reveal their identities to purportedly support allegations of manipulations in the result of the ratings.

ABS-CBN has been airing plugs asking viewers in homes with television ratings panels of AGB to come out in the open and prove that they had been bought off into watching certain programs to manipulate ratings results.

AGB, however, insisted that privacy of their panel home members should be maintained and protected.

“We’re asking the court to stop ABS-CBN from requesting our panel home members to come out,” AGB’s legal counsel Francisco Rivera was quoted as saying in a radio interview.

Rivera said that after the ratings controversy broke out, AGB has ruled out “exposed” panel homes from being surveyed.

The court gave ABS-CBN five days to submit a formal comment regarding the petition of AGB.

Meanwhile, ABS-CBN chief legal counsel Atty. Maximilian Uy said there is nothing wrong with asking panel homes of AGB Nielsen Media Research Philippines to contact the network if they have been approached or bribed to switch to another TV station.

In a statement, Uy said: “Those we are asking to come forward are those who have been approached by another TV station and whose identities are no longer confidential. Therefore, there is nothing to keep confidential anymore in so far as these panel homes are concerned. The concerned TV station already knows their identities.”

Uy added that with this step, ABS-CBN is effectively doing for AGB Nielsen what the station asked it to do, which is to identify the corrupted homes and remove them from the panel.

Last Thursday, GMA Network filed a P15-million civil suit against ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp., including its executives and talents, after it branded as “libelous” the accusation of ABS-CBN that GMA-7 was involved in the manipulation of metered households of AGB in Bacolod.

GMA said: “In reckless disregard of truth, with malice and in bad faith, and with obvious intent to defame and ridicule GMA Network before the public, ABS-CBN distorted, spliced off, and suppressed the accurate and complete statements of Ms. (Maya) Reforma.”

Prior this, ABS-CBN had sued AGB after receiving reports that a third party was allegedly contacting and bribing metered households in Bacolod in an effort to influence the TV ratings.

The court battle and network war stemmed from a report of ABS-CBN’s AM radio station, dzMM, which quoted AGB general manager Maya Reforma supposedly identifying GMA-7 as the broadcast network behind alleged efforts to manipulate results of TV ratings in  Bacolod.

But GMA-7 has vehemently denied such allegation, and maintained that the network is not for “dirty tactics” or “dirty play” as they could not afford to compromise the integrity and credibility they have established through the years.