Media Releases
Strong Audiences for RNZ National
Released at 1:03 pm on 4 July 2019
The second nationwide GfK radio industry survey for 2019 reflects another strong twelve-month performance for RNZ’s live radio programming with audience increases year-on-year for key weekday programmes and Saturday Morning proving particularly popular for listeners to RNZ National.
The GfK survey results show that typically 694,700 New Zealanders or 16.0% of the 10plus population are tuned in to RNZ radio each week. Among all radio listening in New Zealand, RNZ National has a market share of 11.7% and a cumulative audience of 626,900 listeners, an increase of 20,600 compared to the equivalent survey last year.
Results in the all-important Breakfast period (Monday to Friday 6am – 9am) show Morning Report increased audiences year-on-year, reaching 459,500 listeners. This is a station share of 15.1% of the total radio listening audience at that time of day.
During the week Nine to Noon has seen growth of more than 10,000 listeners year-on-year while on weekends, Saturday Morning (Saturday 8 am – midday) has increased its listenership by more than 17,000 since the equivalent 2018 survey and now has an audience of 275,000.
RNZ Concert has a weekly cumulative audience of 172,600 people or 4 % of the 10-plus population with the typical listener now tuning in for more than eight and a half hours each week.
Excellent radio results are boosted by significant growth in online audiences over the same period.*
RNZ Head of Radio and Music, David Allan, said “This is another strong performance across the board for RNZ National, hitting our second highest GfK audience ever*, with 626,900 listeners (10+) Nationwide each week.
It’s a great reward for all our teams, whose commitment to original content and engagement is fantastic and obviously well appreciated by our listeners.
“The audience thirst for quality journalism, news, information, music and entertainment has resulted in great results for our key programmes and reinforces the importance of RNZ in the total New Zealand radio market.
“We’re especially delighted that Checkpoint (Monday – Friday 5 pm - 6.30pm) with new host, Lisa Owen, has grown its audience to 276,900 listeners since earlier this year*, and the public response to our new 5am show, First Up (Monday – Friday 5 am – 6 am) with Indira Stewart is looking very positive which is exciting.”
The multi-media broadcaster has also achieved significant growth across digital channels. More than 793,000 users now access the RNZ website during a typical week, an increase of 32% year-on-year, and there were on average over 1,804,000 monthly audio downloads from rnz.co.nz – up 27% over the equivalent period in 2018.
Collaborative partnerships with other major media organisations, including Stuff, NZME, MSN, TVNZ and Bauer, continue to extend the reach for RNZ content.
The most recent RNZ audience results are available here: http://www.radionz.co.nz/about/audience-research http://www.gfk.com/en-nz/insights/
*Source: GfK Radio Audience Measurement, All Radio Stations, Total New Zealand - RNZ – S2 2019 (NB Waikato S3 2017), All 10+, Mon-Sun 12mn-12mn, Cume (‘000’s) unless otherwise stated. Comparisons made are with GfK S2 2018. *Historical data available on request. *Checkpoint: comparison with GfK S1 2019. * RNZ user metrics: Google Analytics, average weekly users on RNZ website weeks 1 to 26, 2018 vs weeks 1 to 26, 2019. RNZ audio download figures: Internal reporting, average monthly figures, January to May, 2018 vs January to May, 2019.
ENDS