One in Two Kiwi Viewers Share the Night with TVNZ

Thursday 21 August 2014

Cold Nights, Hot TV: One in Two Kiwi Viewers Share the Night with TVNZ

With TVNZ’s news and entertainment line-up firing on all cylinders, half of those watching TV in July spent their nights locked on TV ONE or TV2 – the network’s strongest share result in three years.

TVNZ’s channels were in formidable form between 5:30 to 10:30pm, TV’s most popular and competitive time zone. The network’s combined share was 50.3% for AP5+ in July. In the key trading demos, the double act took a 48.2% cut of TV ONE’s 25-54 target audience and 47.5% in TV2’s 18-49 demo.

Share gives a clear insight into TV viewing preferences and it’s an important measure of success, says Jeff Latch, TVNZ’s Head of Content.

“Share tells us a lot about our audiences’ programme preferences – what they want to see more of at a certain time and what they don’t. As people wind down for the day in these colder winter weeks, one in two viewers will choose to spend time with us – that’s a very strong preference. Both our channels have built strong momentum since the start of the year and it’s tremendous to see audiences respond so positively as we roll out a bumper crop of the hottest shows on TV.”

News and current affairs is the lynchpin of TV ONE’s prime time schedule. ONE News had its best month in two years with 34.5% share in July. Seven Sharp had its biggest month since launch with 30% share among all New Zealanders aged 5+ and 20.3% share among 25-54s.

“TV ONE is the home of New Zealand’s preferred news and current affairs shows. Popular factual shows are doing extremely well, as are much loved local shows with a long history on the channel like Country Calendar and Sunday Theatre.”

Latch says a strong performance at 5.30pm is an important building block for primetime performance. Home and Away has helped TV2 to its strongest share result in eight years against 18-49s. The Aussie hit attracted four times the audience of any other show it came up against (38.9% share). Meanwhile, New Zealand’s favourite soap,Shortland Street, dominates the 7pm timeslot with 41.3% share.

“From 5.30pm, Home and Away sets up TV2 for the night. This flows through to Shortland Street and into shows like My Kitchen Rules, which has been a powerful presence on the channel. Resurrection was the biggest drama launch in New Zealand in a number of years and The Voice and The Voice Kids are hitting all the right notes with our viewers too.”

TVNZ’s online performance has also impressed. July was the second highest ever month for TVNZ Ondemand with 5.67 million streams – a 50% increase on the same time last year.

“We had a stellar month in July. With new shows like My Kitchen Rules New Zealand about to launch on TV ONE and The Amazing Race: Australia v New Zealand hitting its stride on TV2, we are confident we’ll continue this strong run into August and the remainder of the year,” says Latch.

The channel’s commercial demographics are quoted unless otherwise indicated. TV ONE: 25-54; TV2: 18-49.

Source: Nielsen TAM, Consolidated
TVNZ Share – TV One, TV2, TV One Plus1 and TV2+ 1 combined between 1730-2230
TV One shows - Audience share against AP 25-54 based on performance on TV One
TV2 shows – Audience share against AP 18-49 based on performance on TV2
All figures for July 2014

ENDS

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