Media Releases

Strong Growth for Morning Report sees RNZ Radio Audience Top 700,000 Listeners

Released at 12:58 pm on 27 September 2018

An outstanding performance in the latest GfK radio survey has seen RNZ’s radio audiences exceed 700,000 for the first time - boosted by an increase of more than 24,000 listeners for RNZ’s flagship breakfast news programme Morning Report.

New nationwide GfK Radio Audience Measurement figures for the 12-month period to 1st September 2018 have just been released.

They show that typically 705,800 New Zealanders or 16.6% of the ten plus population, are tuned in to RNZ each week.  These are the highest figures recorded since the GfK nationwide surveys began delivering comprehensive unified data across the New Zealand radio industry.

Among all radio stations in New Zealand, RNZ National has a market share of 12 % and a cumulative audience of 633,500 listeners, an increase of 27,200 since the last survey.  

Results in the highly competitive Breakfast period (Mon-Fri 6 am – 9am) show Morning Report increased audiences by 24,400 reaching 481,500 listeners. This is a market share of 15.4% of the total radio listening audience at that time of day.  

RNZ Concert is also up with a weekly cumulative audience of 182,000 people or 4.3% of the 10-plus population.

RNZ Head of Radio and Music, David Allan, said the results were a milestone for RNZ National with record audiences for all key shows: 

“The RNZ National result is led by a strong performance by Morning Report with Susie Ferguson and Guyon Espiner, which went up by 24,400 listeners to 481,500, and this has driven significant growth for Nine to Noon with Kathryn Ryan (up almost 9,000 listeners to 327,700), Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan (up by 11,000 listeners to 297,900), Jim Mora’s Panel (up by 15,000 listeners to 246,700), and Checkpoint (up by 8,300 listeners to 295,400). 

“Saturday Morning with Kim Hill (up by 14,200 listeners to 272,000, and Sunday Morning with Wallace Chapman (up by 11,500 listeners to 304,700) also showed audience growth - a pleasing result says Allan.   

“RNZ National has clearly benefited from a strong and varied winter news cycle, more original journalism and diverse content generally on all our platforms, and a talented and stable line-up of engaging hosts after a period of on-going refreshment.

“Connection with our listeners has been a major focus for the radio station over the last three years, and our audience engagement has never been stronger.”

Over the same period more than 580,000 users accessed the RNZ website on a typical week, more than 209,000 video streams took place on RNZ platforms, and partnerships with major media organisations, including Stuff, NZME, MSN, TVNZ and Bauer, have added new audiences and extended 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 – S3/2018, All 10+, Mon-Sun 12mn-12mn, Cume (‘000’s) unless otherwise stated.

Google Analytics for RNZ user metrics- average weekly users on RNZ website and Video Streams: Youtube (RNZ) and Facebook (RNZ and Checkpoint); average weekly video streams from September 10th 2017 – September 1st 2018.

ENDS