Are radio listening diaries accurate?

Radio diaries have been used as a tool to record listener behaviour since the 1930s, largely because they offer the advantage of allowing for the measurement of activity over a period of time rather than within an individual time spot.

Are radio listening diaries accurate?

Andrew GreenZenithOptimedia

BACKGROUND

The first use of a diary to record radio listening was in April 1934 when NBC in the United States included it in an 'activity' diary placed with 3,042 housewives nationwide.1 Diaries were used intermittently over the next 30 or so years in the US but did not succeed in supplanting the dominant Hooper (telephone), Nielsen (Audimeter) and Pulse (personal interview) measurements as the 'official' industry currency until 1967.

Nielsen's US local television measurement service, launched in the nation's 30 largest cities in 1955, used diaries in conjunction with...

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