diff -r d18d50df6af0 Lib/statistics.py
--- a/Lib/statistics.py	Sat Feb 08 08:29:00 2014 +1100
+++ b/Lib/statistics.py	Sat Feb 08 08:36:14 2014 +1100
@@ -251,9 +251,7 @@
 
 def _counts(data):
     # Generate a table of sorted (value, frequency) pairs.
-    if data is None:
-        raise TypeError('None is not iterable')
-    table = collections.Counter(data).most_common()
+    table = collections.Counter(iter(data)).most_common()
     if not table:
         return table
     # Extract the values with the highest frequency.
diff -r d18d50df6af0 Lib/test/test_statistics.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_statistics.py	Sat Feb 08 08:29:00 2014 +1100
+++ b/Lib/test/test_statistics.py	Sat Feb 08 08:36:14 2014 +1100
@@ -1375,6 +1375,14 @@
         # collections.Counter, which accepts None and returns an empty dict.
         self.assertRaises(TypeError, self.func, None)
 
+    def test_counter_data(self):
+        # Test that a Counter is treated like any other iterable.
+        data = collections.Counter([1, 1, 1, 2])
+        # Since the keys of the counter are treated as data points, not the
+        # counts, this should raise.
+        self.assertRaises(statistics.StatisticsError, self.func, data)
+
+
 
 # === Tests for variances and standard deviations ===