Radio ends NZ Music Month On All-Time High
NZ Music Month on radio has finished on an all-time high, according to figures released this morning by airplay
monitoring service RadioScope.
Local content on radio hit a record 22.76% during the seven days to June 1 - eclipsing the previous record of 20.59% set
earlier in the month, and ensuring May truly was NZ Music Month for radio listeners.
Strong contributions were made across the board, says RadioScope Manager Paul Kennedy, with stations in every music
format boosting their support for local sounds.
However, special mention must go to Channel Z, who became the first commercial station in history to devote its airtime
100% to New Zealand music last week, and to the seven b.net stations who celebrated their own long-running 100% NZ music
weeks earlier in May.
"Those stations deserve maximum respect for their work championing local music," he says.
"Between them, they have provided the incubator for so many of the talented artists now beginning to make national and
international waves. And as a result, the mainstream stations now have an array of great music available by artists who
cut it with the best the world can offer, allowing them too to up their support tremendously in recent times.”
The amount of New Zealand music on Pop, Adult-Contemporary and Easy Listening stations has more than tripled since
RadioScope monitoring was established just four years ago.
“This new record is a fitting way to bring NZ Music Month to a close,” says Kennedy. “Well done, New Zealand radio.”
Well done also to those who worked so hard behind the scenes to ensure radio had the support it need to celebrate the
month in style – the artists and record labels, and the NZ Music Month organizing committee: David Innes (RBA), Cath
Andersen, Arthur Baysting, Abbie Rutledge and Tom Clark (NZ Music Industry Commission), Brendan Smyth, Camille Guzzwell
and David Ridler (NZ On Air), Debbie Little (APRA), Adam Holt (RIANZ/Universal Music), Renee Jones and Mark Roach (IMNZ)
and Simon Hakaraia (DotInk).
Some Facts and Figures: The overall 22.76% record beat the previous record of 20.59% set in the week to May 11, 2003.
It is just the third time ever that local content has broken the 20% barrier. The only other time was during NZ Music
Month 2002 when it reached 20.01%.
This week's figure was achieved by airplay for a diverse range of material - 417 unique local songs by 257 different
artists.
- Thanks to Channel Z's effort, local content for the Rock format hit 50.08% last week. The record for any format during
any given week still lies with Alternative radio (dominated by the b.net stations) at 88.11%
RadioScope is a product of Media Sauce Ltd. It monitors music airplay on more than 70 stations nationwide each week and
the data it produces is widely used by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ), the Radio Broadcasters
Assocation (RBA) and NZ On Air.
- Weekly charts are accessible to the public at http:// http://www.medianstrip.com.