MediaRoom: The latest radio ratings show a second big drop for RNZ National, a bounceback for The Edge and strong growth for ZM
RNZ has seen its flagship RNZ National station fall from a commanding first to fourth biggest radio audience in the country in the latest GfK ratings survey.
The station's loss of 47,700 weekly listeners, is its second consecutive fall - from record highs during the pandemic and general election campaign in 2020 Its stablemate RNZ Concert, which was under threat last year, added 11,200 listeners a week.
There is speculation within RNZ that the fall could be because the public has Covid news fatigue and some listeners have turned to music stations. Commercial brands The Edge and The Breeze both overtook RNZ National for total weekly audiences in this survey.
But Newstalk ZB, with its talking heads and public talkback, also surged past RNZ National in weekly audience. Newstalk ZB is the country's number one commercial station on a separate measure, market share.
Newstalk's weekly audience gain is being put down to ZB benefiting from its owner NZME having closed another talk brand, RadioSport, last year - and to ZB's America's Cup coverage.
RNZ won't be content, however, to see its flagship station losing audience and influence and will no doubt be reviewing on-air performance to restore the station's audience gains from even before the Covid-19 surge last year that took it to 703,000 listeners a week.
Its top rating programme, Morning Report, was off by 45,000 to 434,000 listeners across the week, while its main competitor the Mike Hosking Breakfast on Newstalk ZB rose 25,000 to 421,000. This is the closest result between the two programmes for years.
All other programmes on RNZ National also fell, with the segment comprising Midday Report and Jesse Mulligan in the afternoon (12-4 pm) dropping the least, by 15,000 to 328,800 and moving ahead of Checkpoint (317,800) to be the second highest audience of the day.
For the commercial radio market, the first GfK survey for 2021 shows Newstalk ZB holding onto its solid market share lead nationwide and in Auckland, buoyed by Hosking's leadership in the mornings. But in Wellington, the talk station fell back in share as Hosking suffered a steep drop of almost 7 share points, from 20.1 to 14.3. Newstalk ZB's total national weekly audience figure of 627,500 is its highest ever.
Newstalk owner NZME was happy with its leading music brand ZM, topping the national breakfast market share for the 18-34 and 25-54 demographics with hosts Fletch, Vaughan and Megan and overall being equal number one in share with The Edge nationally for the 18-34 age group.
For NZME's rival in the commercial market, MediaWorks, there was good news, too, as the newly formed radio and outdoor advertising company (shorn now of TV3, which was bought by international broadcaster Discovery) extended its overall share of listeners over NZME to an 18.5 point gap (53.6 to 35.1). A year ago in the GfK survey the gap between the broadcasters for total market share was 16.6 points and two years ago it was 14.8.* The 53.6 share for MediaWorks is a record.
MediaWorks' dominance of the music market remains. It trumpeted having seven of the top nine stations in both the breakfast and drivetime markets.
Top stations (nationwide cumulative audience across the week, with rise or fall, plus previous ranking)
The Edge - 652,200 (up 56,000, from 4th)
The Breeze - 652,100 (up 32,400, still 2nd)
Newstalk ZB - 627,500 (up 29,100, still 3rd)
RNZ National - 609,800 (down 47,700, from 1st)
More FM - 605,300 (up 28,000, still 5th)
ZM - 586,600 (up 60,800, still 6th)
The Rock - 490,600 (up 62,800, still 7th)
And a sample from down table
Radio Hauraki - 249,100 (up 2,200)
RNZ Concert - 229,500 (up 11,200)
George - 179,100 (up 16,600)
Flava - 177,100 (down 25,400)
The GfK Survey 1 for 2021 measured two periods, from September to November and then January to April, for both its commercial radio ratings and its separate RNZ measure.
*An earlier version of this story contained wrong figures for past total market share for the two companies. The error is regretted.
