GfK Radio Audience Data from S3 shows competition for listeners remains tight

The New Zealand Commercial Radio Industry released the S3 2022 GfK Radio Audience Data into the market yesterday.

The results show almost 3.7 million New Zealanders listened to radio every week and over 3.4 million of those listen to commercial radio stations, during the survey period.

The weekly cumulative audience data demonstrates commercial radio’s continued ability to deliver strong audiences of all ages:

• 67 percent of people 10-24 listen to commercial radio each week
• 72 percent of people 18-39 listen to commercial radio each week
• 78 percent of people 25-44 listen to commercial radio each week
• 78 percent of people 25-54 listen to commercial radio each week 
• 80 percent of people 45-64 listen to commercial radio each week
• 79 percent of people 55-74 listen to commercial radio each week
• 78 percent of Grocery Buyers listen to commercial radio each week

On average, listeners tune in for 15 hours 22 minutes of commercial radio each week.

“At a time the government is looking to merge Radio New Zealand and Television New Zealand into a new larger media organisation to deal with the global challenges facing media organisations today, they need to ensure they do not create an organisation that harms the rest of the sector in the process. Commercial Radio reaches 75% of the population every week and no crown-owned media organisation should be creating content that the commercial market can,” says Jana Rangooni, Radio Broadcasters CEO.

NZME-owned Newstalk ZB remains the number one commercial radio station in the country, with many of the media company’s music radio brands realising audience growth in the period. MediaWorks, however, maintains its position as the country’s leading commercial radio network with an audience share of 53.7 percent. It has more than 2.4 million people tuning to its radio brands every week across New Zealand.

NZME’s Chief Radio Officer Jason Winstanley says: “We’re strategically focused on growing our radio brands to service both the needs of our traditional radio audiences whilst also ensuring we have a strong digital presence for each network. We are continually innovating in this area and I’m proud of what our team is doing to continue to drive engagement and grow our audiences day by day,” he says.

MediaWorks also has the top five music stations in the country (The Breeze, The Rock, More FM, The Sound and Magic), as well as seven of the top eight Music Stations at both Breakfast and Drive time.

The Breeze is New Zealand’s number one music station and is also the country’s radio station of choice during the workday.

MediaWorks’ Music Brands Director of Content Leon Wratt says: “New Zealand’s post-lockdown ‘return to normal’ has seen positive results for music and entertainment brands. Consumer confidence has increased in the last two months and it’s been great to see the return of concerts and events like The Rock 2000 where we can engage with our audience and our listeners can come together to celebrate. Congratulations to all our brands for another round of fantastic results – roll on summer!”

NZME’s popular music station ZM and its Fletch Vaughan & Hayley have the most listeners at breakfast in the key commercial demographic of 25-54 year olds. The ZM trio also celebrate having the most listeners in other key demographics: 18-34, 18-39, 18-49 and 25-44 year olds.

NZME-owned The Hits, Radio Hauraki, Flava, Gold and Gold Sport all gained listeners and grew their audience share.

The Mike Hosking Breakfast continues to reach the largest breakfast audience across New Zealand – more than double the audience share of its next competitor and with 146,000 more listeners than that competitor. It is also the top rating podcast in the country, boasting 929,000 monthly downloads and 104,000 monthly listeners.

Peter Richardson, TRB General Manager says: “Despite increasing competition for their attention, New Zealanders, across all age ranges, continue to engage with radio in their droves. Radio’s mix of news, music, entertainment and personalities creates a unique environment for listeners.”

NZME Chief Executive Michael Boggs says having a strong radio network, as well as continually innovating across its digital audio platform iHeartRadio means NZME continues to serve its valued audiences across the country, meeting their different listening needs.

“It’s phenomenal to think that NZME now reaches 3.6 million Kiwis across our radio, digital audio, print and online platforms, with nearly two million people reached via our radio platforms plus nearly 900,000 on our podcast network. Audio is a big strategic priority for NZME –  the immense growth we are seeing, particularly across our digital audio platform iHeartRadio, shows that we are making significant inroads to being New Zealand’s leading audio company,” says Boggs.

Liz Fraser Commercial Director at MediaWorks says: “With daylight saving beginning this weekend and warmer months on the horizon, we are also seeing the impact of Covid-19 restrictions being lifted and life returning to a new sort of normal. People are back and moving again both in the car and on public transport and MediaWorks is capturing the attention of these commuters through our strong breakfast and drive shows, along with rova and our Digital and Outdoor assets.”

Podcast power

Results were also in from the latest Triton NZ Podcast Ranker , which shows NZME’s digital audio platform, iHeartRadio, continuing to outperform others, with close to six million podcast downloads in the month of August – reaching around 900,000 Kiwis. iHeartRadio reached more than 1.1 million devices last month and boasted more than six million listening hours.

rova, MediaWorks’ digital audio streaming platform, continues to see an upward tick with over two million listening hours and 4.9 million streams last month. rova has reported a 43 percent increase in podcast downloads in the 12 months to July 31 2022 and a 68 percent increase in podcast listeners in the 12 months to July 31 2022.

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