NZME Grows Radio Audience And Share. Commercial Radio Continues To Attract Massive Audience

New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME) has grown its share of audience and its listener numbers in the latest GfK Commercial Radio Survey, released today. The survey also demonstrates the continued strength of the country’s commercial radio industry, with 3.4 million Kiwis tuning in weekly.

Newstalk ZB continued its unrivalled run at the top, remaining the country’s number one commercial radio station for the sixteenth year*. The Mike Hosking Breakfast remains the number one breakfast show with 445,300 listeners.

ZM has had a fantastic result, growing its audience to 537,400. The Hits continues to build on its success, celebrating its biggest ever audience and growing audience share for the eighth consecutive survey. Radio Hauraki also celebrates its biggest ever audience and Flava grew its total number of listeners this survey.

NZME also excels in digital audio with an audience of 1.3 million people~, boasting the top performing podcast network in the country with 17.2 million downloads so far in 2024^.

Jason Winstanley, NZME Chief Audio Officer, says the results show NZME continues to make excellent progress towards its strategic goal to be number one in audio.

“We are particularly proud of our ZM team for delivering such a strong result in line with our strategy. NZME has put a huge amount of energy and resource into delivering the most loved and listened to content, investing in attracting the best radio hosts in the country and complementing our on air offering with strong digital platforms that are an extension of our much-loved radio brands. All of this has led to the growth we are seeing in the results today, with some of our biggest stations showing consistent growth,” says Winstanley.

Mike McClung, NZME Chief Content Officer – Music Brands, says: “These fantastic results illustrate the hard work and huge commitment our teams put in every day to ensure we continue to connect with our audiences, providing music, news and entertainment that they love listening to, so they keep tuning in every day to their favourite station and their favourite hosts,” he says.

NZME CEO Michael Boggs says the survey results are also a reflection of the power of radio, a key contributor to NZME reaching 9 out of 10 Kiwis~.

“With 3.4 million people continuing to tune in weekly, commercial radio remains strong and stable, which is excellent news for advertisers. As an industry we continue to innovate by offering a diverse range of content across our radio brands to reach a vast audience, investing in excellent on-air hosts and broadcasters, and growing digital audio and podcasting. Radio continues to be a high performer, and at NZME we’re pleased to be able to continue to serve our commercial partners whilst also entertaining a thriving audio audience,” says Boggs.

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