Nielsen’s Audio Diary Measurement Service is undergoing a six-month accreditation hiatus from the Media Rating Council, as the company fine-tunes its broader rollout of mSurvey, the mobile diary tool the company began phasing into diary markets earlier this year.
News of the pause, which started June 23 and runs through December 23, was shared to Nielsen clients in a letter, which was in turn obtained by Radio Ink.
The letter describes three connected pieces: expanded recruitment through mSurvey and eScreener along with third-party survey panels, a low-burden digital survey built to be completed in minutes rather than days, and a responsive digital format that reacts to participant input in real time.
MRC accreditation is based on an independent audit of a measurement vendor’s methodology, data collection, and reporting to confirm it meets minimum published standards, giving advertisers and agencies a credible basis for buying and evaluating media. Each time an accredited company changes its methodology, it has to go through the audit process again to keep its accreditation.
Nielsen reports client currency and reporting are unaffected in the meantime. According to the letter, day-to-day ability to transact on Nielsen currency remains unchanged, and the hiatus does not touch PPM services for audio or TV. The traditional paper diary stays in place for the majority of the sample.
Nielsen began implementing mSurvey with the Spring 2026 survey starting April 2, initially covering about 10% of the total sample, with the remaining 90% still conducted via paper and pencil. The tool lets respondents log listening online, with emphasis on a smartphone, instead of filling out a paper diary. It was rolled out first to households without residents 55 or older, along with households that include Black, non-Hispanic, and renter populations.
Nielsen said the goal is to move the expanded digital instruments into production early next year, with regular progress updates going out to both customers and the MRC in the meantime.
