1 Sep 2020

Audience drift to online media accelerates

From Mediawatch, 10:24 am on 1 September 2020

The latest survey of New Zealanders’ media habits shows more people are turning to offshore-owned online entertainment platforms while engagement with most local media has fallen. 

NZ On Air's latest bi-annual survey: 'Where are the audiences?'

NZ On Air's latest bi-annual survey: 'Where are the audiences?' Photo: supplied

Research commissioned by the government’s broadcasting funding agency New Zealand on Air concludes 2020 “looks to be the year traditional media audiences are overtaken by digital media.”

1,511 people over 15 years of age were surveyed in May and June for the report called ‘Where Are The Audiences?’ 

The report compares use of range of media platforms every two years. This survey period was delayed until the end of the nationwide level 4 COVID-19 lockdown.

Viewership of local free-to-air and pay TV has fallen since the last survey in 2018 while use of online service  - free and on subscription - has surged.

The single most popular outlet is now YouTube ( owned by Google) with local free-to-air channel TVNZ1 close behind ahead of Netflix.

Six out of ten people surveyed have access to subscription video-on-demand services (SVOD) such as Netflix and Neon. Only 35 percent reported using SVOD on a weekly basis in 2016.

In 2018 traditional broadcast media delivered the biggest audiences with 82 percent of people tuning into linear TV each week and 78 percent tuning into radio.

In the 2020 survey, linear TV still has the longest time spent watching at 137 mins a day but that has declined from 156 mins two years ago.

For the first time this study found a decline among both lighter and heavier TV viewers while time spent watching SVOD has grown to 95 minutes a day. 

44 per cent of those surveyed streamed music online each day while fewer people reported listening to radio stations each day. 

RNZ National and Newstalk ZB bucked that trend, possibly because the COVID-19 crisis increased demand for news and information in  the survey period. 

One in three people surveyed read a newspaper each day and 12 per cent listened to podcasts daily.

TVNZ was cited as the most trusted source of news about COVID-19, ahead of the official government website and stuff.co.nz. 

Social media was widely used as a source, but only 2 per cent of people 25 and over trusted it.