MediaRoom column: Finding a niche in the country's most competitive media market is no easy thing and will require long-term thinking for a radio newcomer
Commercial radio's newest player, the news and talk station Today FM, ends the year with low traction so far in the three main centres - and a mountain to climb in the radio ratings.
While Today's audience numbers for the whole country still contain some mixed data from its predecessor station Magic Talk gathered before Today's March 21 launch, and can't yet be compared with competitors, the GfK survey's individual metro audience numbers are pure Today FM, having been taken between June 26 and November 12.
The station's bold launch marketing and team of high-profile presenters were always tasked with building a new brand, an alternative to the powerhouse Newstalk ZB, over the long term. One survey doesn't ruin a summer, and the 2022 results will be seen as foundational.
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Today's owner MediaWorks stuck to that aim in its media release on the latest GfK survey. "Today FM remains a long-term project for MediaWorks and there won't be a full national picture until next year when the results are decoupled from Magic Talk."
However the survey's individual metro audience numbers do not suffer from that Magic Talk hangover, and the station share and total cumulative audience over a week for Today are stubbornly low after an intensive team effort this launch year.
In Auckland, the station achieved a 1.3 share (to Newstalk ZB's 16.5) and a weekly audience of 29,700 (to Newstalk's 269,900). Newstalk ZB's total audience actually dropped by 15,000 in the city but it was still 30,000 clear of its nearest music challenger, Mai FM.
In the important breakfast segment in Auckland, high-profile Tova O'Brien's show attracted 16,300 listeners, compared with Mike Hosking's Newstalk ZB market leader with 174,400. Duncan Garner's morning show had 14,200 listeners to Kerre Woodham's 96,100 (which was, in a rare negative for ZB, down 18,000 between surveys). The Today afternoon slot featuring Mark Richardson and Leah Panapa scored 11,300 to Newstalk's 115,800 and Lloyd Burr's drive show had 9200 to Heather du Plessis Allan's 136,100.
These kinds of listener numbers, and the scale of Newstalk's dominance are also reflected in the Wellington and Christchurch figures for the two stations.
In the capital, Today has an audience of 6900 to Newstalk's 59,400. The new station sits in 15th, just behind the local Māori station Atiawa Toa FM and George FM.
In the Wellington breakfast market, O'Brien's show reached 2800 people in this survey period, to Hosking's 38,900 in first place. On the measurement for station share in this market, Today is 0.9 to Newstalk's 27.4.
The Christchurch picture is similar, with Today in 17th place by station share and 14th by total audience. In this market, Newstalk is only fourth in audience, behind MediaWorks' music stations More FM, The Edge and The Breeze, but its 70,500 weekly audience is almost 10 times that of Today, on 7200.
The early GfK surveys next year will complete the picture nationwide, but these metro results will be reinforcing to MediaWorks how long a game it must play to carve even a small slice of the news and talk market - which is the cornerstone of rival NZME radio's revenues. Patience, and confidence in creating something new and different, will be the watchwords.
In the overall market, nationwide, Newstalk raised its market share to 15.3 from 14.7 to retain first place from The Breeze on 9.2 (down 0.6), The Rock on 8.5 (up 0.5), More FM on 7.6 (down 0.2) and The Sound on 7.4 (down 0.2). All those music stations are MediaWorks brands.
Nationwide, Hosking's breakfast show grew its share in number one place from 20.3 to 21.6, with More FM's morning team the best of the rest on an 8.6 share.
MediaWorks' total market share of all its combined brands in the GfK survey sits at 53.2 to NZME's 37.7, with NZME's best music station nationwide being 7th-placed ZM.
Publicly owned RNZ is measured in a separate GfK survey, which put its total weekly audience for RNZ National at 572,000 in a typical week, up 9000 between surveys but down from a record high of 703,000 in late 2020 and now trailing NewstalkZB's 691,900, More FM's 594,800, The Breeze with 588, 400 and The Edge on 583,900.
RNZ has provided Newsroom with its weekly audience figure for key shows, with Morning Report up 10,500 to 409,300 listeners across a typical week. That compares with 464,700 for the Mike Hosking Breakfast (down 7,700). Morning Report was as high as 531,000 in September 2020 and was 433,000 in late 2019, before the pandemic hit.
Nine to Noon, with Kathryn Ryan, recorded 301,600 listeners across a week in the latest survey, up from 290,800 last time and the drivetime news programme Checkpoint with Lisa Owen nudged up to 234,100 from 230,800.
RNZ has had strong growth in its online audience, the rnz.co.nz site lifting again in October by 75,000 unique users to a healthy 982,000. The RNZ site is vying with Newshub and 1News as the second tier news providers online, just under that million mark. Stuff and nzherald.co.nz battle it out for the top place, usually between the 1.8 and 2.0 million uniques a month.
