Media Releases

RNZ reaching more New Zealanders than ever

Released at 11:57 am on 29 August 2024

29 August 2024

RNZ today releases new audience data that shows overall audiences are higher than ever before with 77% of New Zealanders 18-plus accessing its content a month.*

That is up 2.6% on a year ago and reflects audiences across broadcast, digital and social platforms and via RNZ’s 65 content partners which syndicate RNZ content. The result means RNZ is well on its way to its target of reaching 80% of New Zealanders by 2027.

Rnz.co.nz has been a major contributor to the growth. Visitors to the website have risen more than 60% to a record 1.4m in July. RNZ measures its overall audience through its regular Value Indices Survey*. The survey showed the majority of New Zealanders access RNZ content on multiple platforms (51%) with only 2% accessing RNZ solely through broadcast radio.

RNZ Chief Executive and Editor in Chief Paul Thompson said its strategy of delivering outstanding public media that matters to audiences wherever they are was working.

“Two decades ago, RNZ reached around 20% of adult New Zealanders through two radio stations. Since then we’ve introduced a website, the RNZ apps, online audio players and a podcast section among other changes. We’ve increased our content on social media and started sharing our content with other media, meaning there are now more than 65 different places where you can potentially access RNZ’s content. We are truly a multiplatform media organisation, reaching more New Zealanders than ever before.”

Over the next year RNZ plans to focus on continuing its digital transformation, with the imminent delivery of a new podcast section and updates to the audio player the first of many changes RNZ’s audiences would see.

Thompson acknowledged that while overall reach continued to grow, the picture for radio was more challenging.

The latest GfK Survey showed decreases for RNZ’s radio audience.

In a typical week in Survey 2 2024, 595,700, New Zealanders aged 10+ listen to RNZ National, and RNZ Concert. (639,600 in the last survey). 

RNZ National’s audience 10+ is 494,500 in a typical week (529,800 in the last survey).  

RNZ Concert’s audience 10+ is 178,200 in a typical week (184,500 in the last survey).   

These results have seen RNZ’s market share drop slightly from 12.5% to 11.7%.   

Thompson said apart from the COVID-19 lockdown period radio numbers were on a slow downward trend.

“While live radio numbers obviously only reflect a portion of our total audience, it is an area that we want do better in, and we will be looking at ways we can improve. We are introducing a new line up for Saturday Morning this weekend and will look to see what other changes could be beneficial.

“Most of our radio programmes have on demand listening or podcasts, audiences that access their content through live players online and contribute richly to RNZ’s website and other channels. It’s been a very long time since any of these shows could be accessed solely on live radio as our audience continues to choose new ways to engage with our content.”

Other results from the Verian (formerly Kantar Public) Value Indices survey show 73% of New Zealanders agree it’s important to have a public service broadcaster, compared with 69% a year ago and 62% believe that RNZ provides a valuable service, up from 58% a year ago.   

Trust in RNZ also continues to grow with 49% agreeing that RNZ is an organisation you can trust, up from 45% a year ago.   

Thompson said as a public media organisation RNZ recognised it had a role to play in rebuilding trust with media overall and it had worked hard on its standards.  

“In under a year, we have implemented all 22 recommendations of the Independent External Review of RNZ Editorial Processes, including appointing former Political Editor Jane Patterson as our Editorial Quality and Training Director, making changes to publicly available complaints information and instigated a wide-ranging training programme for our journalists. We have also gone further than the recommendations, by establishing an editorial standards committee as part of our Board structure.”

RNZ is looking to build on its trust research by collaborating with others.  

Other initiatives that helped build trust, support the sector and grow audiences included co-funding and managing the Local Democracy Reporter scheme and the creation of RNZ Asia in the past year. 

ENDS

*Verian (formerly Kantar Public) Value Indices survey was conducted between 13 August and 22 August 2024, with a sample of 2000 New Zealanders aged 18 or over.