RNZ National has become the first New Zealand radio station to record more than 700,000 different listeners each week in a nationwide GfK radio industry survey.
The latest GfK radio industry survey for 2020 reflects the impact of COVID-19 lockdown period and underlines the importance of trusted public media in challenging and confronting times created by the pandemic.
The GfK survey results show that typically 826,500 New Zealanders or 16.9% of the 10-plus population are tuned in to RNZ radio each week – an increase of 66,200 on the previous survey.
Among all radio listening in New Zealand, RNZ National has a market share of 13% of the 10-plus population and a cumulative audience of 703,000 listeners, an increase of 48,700 compared to the last survey, and 103,000 year on year. Audience growth was particularly strong among people 30 – 59 years old, which grew more than 30% year on year to reach 300,700.
RNZ Concert has also shown growth and is now listened to by 260,900 people, or an increase of 18,300 since last survey. This represents 3.8% of the 10-plus population.
Results in the closely scrutinised Breakfast period (Mon-Fri 6am-9am) show Morning Report increased its audience by 31,000 and now reaches 531,800 or 12.1% of people aged 10+ across New Zealand. This is a market share of 17.7%2 of the total radio listening audience at that time of day.
RNZ CEO, Paul Thompson, says it is clear that radio as a medium is thriving and continues to play an essential role in the lives of New Zealanders:
“Our RNZ audience results are an emphatic reinforcement of the importance of quality independent journalism, so essential to informing, engaging and uniting New Zealanders in challenging and confronting times.
“In a crisis people turn to trusted media. RNZ’s independent public media channels have again proved their worth and this is reflected in the outstanding radio listenership data released today.”
RNZ has also achieved significant growth across digital channels with three out of five New Zealanders now consuming RNZ content each week.
RNZ.co.nz’s weekly audience continues to outstrip 2019. Weekly numbers peaked at 3.3 million during March lockdown and remain consistently above last year’s levels.