Last week, James Cridland’s Radioland blog had a piece, “Inside an Australian Radio Diary.” A research interviewer visited his home for a different survey and, when chatting with the person, mentioned the radio diary. He was given one! Of course, it wouldn’t count in a survey, but we had the opportunity to see the current Australian radio diary, the counterpart to Nielsen.
The Aussie diary uses station stickers. The diarykeeper places the stickers for their stations on a flap. Below the sticker, you can check off the time — quarter hours are prelisted — and going across, you get the “where” (home, car, work, elsewhere), the “how” (AM/FM, DAB, Phone/tablet, PC/laptop, smart speaker, other), and a check box for headphone listening. Seems thorough and easy for a paper diary, but James mentioned that 80% of the diaries in the Australian system are now filled out online, so the paper diary is becoming a relic in the land down under.
I’ll go James one better, speaking with an actual diarykeeper while the individual was in the survey! Trust me, it wasn’t that exciting, but this non-random sample of one is enlightening.
A Nielsen Diary From the Inside
If you’re in the radio business, your friends and family know it. The person involved is my brother, and when he received a letter from Nielsen, he quickly texted me. His household was in the diary survey last week (May 21–27) in a TSA county, which means that his listening has little effect other than being added to Nationwide.
Nielsen likes his household. About four years ago, he was sent a mailing noting that a Nielsen representative had tried to visit his household but didn’t reach anyone. That was true ,because he lives in a gated community, which keeps both the riffraff and Nielsen out. Eventually, he filled out a survey, which yielded $20 some time later. In 2023, he was in the diary service.
This time around, he received a mailing complete with a crisp dollar bill, followed by a voicemail to let him know the diaries would be arriving at his home very soon. Sure enough, the diaries showed up on time, along with one more dollar bill for each household member. While my brother is younger than me, he is also in the white senior citizen group — not exactly a demo that concerns Nielsen with respect to survey proportionality. By the way, Nielsen knew the makeup of his household. Incentives and the number of diaries were correct.
He’s never been part of the media business but was a chief financial officer. And CFOs are not known for being profligate. CFOs also put a value on time. He was outraged at the thought of filling out a seven-day radio diary for a measly dollar. In fact, if he wasn’t related to a former Arbitron/Nielsen vice president who has been around radio his entire career, he would have trashed the diary. At my request, he filled it out, so I’ve helped Nielsen’s response rates this spring. Still, he balked at the idea of carrying the diary around along with a pen to write down entries.
He just purchased a late-model used vehicle — a fine German marque — which included a free trial of satellite radio. For that reason, his limited amount of listening was to SiriusXM. This caused some initial confusion, as he didn’t bother to read the instructions. His comment was, “I saw AM and FM and didn’t know where to put satellite listening,” so I referred him to the instructions, which clearly state that satellite listening should be included, along with an example.
What the Nielsen Radio Diary Gets Wrong
Another point he made was the range of income in the demo question. The highest level of annual income in the diary is $75K+ and probably hasn’t been updated since last century. I told him that some of us tried to get that changed probably 15–20 years ago. But the IT bandwidth wasn’t available. Perhaps you read about the recent settlement between the hotels in New York and the hotel workers’ union. Over the life of the contract, the average union hotel housekeeper in New York City will earn around $100,000 per year. When hotel housekeepers are in the top income bracket, you know the response categories are grossly outdated. I’ve not seen the income question in the online mSurvey. Perhaps more categories are offered, but unless the paper diary is updated, the income data will continue to be useless in many markets.
He asked why he was required to answer the demo questions — race/ethnic, income, education, etc. — noting the lack of a “no answer” option. I told him he could leave them blank.
As I write this, he has dutifully filled in the diary. He’s checked off the “no listening” box on days he didn’t use a radio. He’ll have mailed back his survey by the time you read this. I think his wife’s diary ended up in the trash while the accompanying dollar went in his pocket. His overall impression? “Why would anyone do this for a dollar?” I did suggest that if someone in his household was in a different demographic group, the payout would be larger. “$20?” Uh, no.
I’m not blaming Nielsen for minimal diary incentives. No survey company can pay people for what their time is worth, and survey research doesn’t operate that way.
Still, the Nielsen radio diary can be improved. The Aussies offer more listening categories. That concept was tested perhaps 20 years ago by Arbitron — AM, FM, Satellite, Internet, Other — and it worked. The problem was that the change would have required an end-to-end revamping of the IT and reporting systems, a no-go. It’s 2026. The large proportion of the country measured by the diary system is probably understating listening that’s not AM or FM broadcast.
The net here is that Nielsen executed correctly. And as a qualitative research study, these results are not projectable. But if you work in a diary market, this is what drives your success. And understanding how a real diarykeeper approaches the task matters.
Let’s meet again next week.
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Diaries should have been 100% elimiated over a decade ago. PPM or a smartphone app in every market that auto-tracks listening is long overdue. Pen and paper are so yesterday. In my opinion, there are two types of people who complete diaries for a full 7 days. 1) Somebody who has a friend in radio and helps them out, and 2) somebody who feels guilty at the end of the week they didn’t do it and writes down their favorite station with made-up listening hours. Diaries are simply no longer effective.