Media: Headliner: Ironside on the case to make NRS relevant again.(Mike Ironside of National Readership Survey)

The former Mail on Sunday MD is out to overhaul and boost the image of the National Readership Survey.

Mike Ironside has been knocking on more doors than a Jehovah's Witness. In his role as the chief executive of the National Readership Survey, he is spreading the word to agencies and publishers about his plans for a new, revamped survey.

While he is far from preaching to the converted, Ironside has one thing on his side: while the NRS has been gathering dust over the years, its new chief executive has been assembling one of the best contacts books in the industry.

Ironside's career started in the 70s working for agencies including FCB and TBWA. He then reached the peak of managing director at The Mail on Sunday during a 14-year stint at Associated Newspapers, where he formed a renowned and almost comic partnership with the managing director of the Daily Mail, Guy Zitter.

'We would go out and play good cop and bad cop. It was a really hackneyed thing, but actually people used to like it because it was a piece of theatre,' Ironside says.

It's not hard to guess who played the bad cop. Inevitably, Ironside, whose emollient character could not be further from his tough-sounding surname, got stuck with the good guy role: 'I often used to say 'Can I be the bad one this time?', but Guy wouldn't have it.'

Ironside left Associated in 2003 when he was replaced as managing director of The Mail on Sunday by Stephen Miron and has experienced some ups and downs since. Not least the closure of So London, the luxury magazine which he ran as managing director in 1997, after just two issues.