WPP hints defamation case against NDTV

In a statement on August 22,WPP dismissed the NDTV lawsuit as “hypothetical” and said: “Despite comments in the media to the contrary,the hypothetical Law Suit has not,as of today,been served on WPP,nor on any of WPP’s operating companies (the “WPP Parties”),referred to in the hypothetical Law Suit.”

Reacting to the statement,NDTV on Thursday said both The Nielsen’s and Kantar’s lawyers are in the know of the suit and have been in touch with NDTV. “It is indeed strange that they term the suit as hypothetical as it is available for everyone to read in full on the website of the Supreme Court of New York.”

Arguing that the New York court had no jurisdiction in the case,WPP said it will seek dismissal of the suit and seek legal costs of the procedure from NDTV. WPP said it was considering filing a defamation case against NDTV.

In response,NDTV said: “We suggest WPP refrain from using their massive PR machine to make baseless threats against NDTV. Instead we request that WPP should focus on honestly fixing (for want of a better word!) their badly damaged and dishonest ratings system in India.”

In a separate development,the News Broadcasters Association said it has written to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry asking it to order an “independent third party” audit to evaluate and measure the TAM systems and direct the ratings provider to “suspend” reporting data till the audit is done.