RNZ tops trust survey, lifts radio and digital audiences

Larger audiences across radio and digital platforms have combined with stronger trust in RNZ than other outlets, new data suggest.

RNZ’s results in the closely watched GfK radio survey were released on Tuesday morning.

After a fall in the first survey of the year, RNZ National bounced back up to 509,200 listeners. Commercial talk station Newstalk ZB dropped fractionally to 656,900 in the same survey. Music stations The Breeze (597,100), and More FM (521,900) both had higher audiences than RNZ National.

• READ MORE: Other RNZ media reports

RNZ Morning Report still trails Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking Breakfast in the hotly contested weekday morning slot, but the gap between the two shows closed in the latest survey. While Hosking shed 14,000 listeners, Morning Report gained 6300, leaving it still 101,700 adrift.

At the other end of the weekday schedule, both RNZ’s 4pm-6pm Checkpoint (down 3000 to 226,400) and ZB’s 4pm-7pm Heather du Plessis Allan Drive were marginally down (down 1700 to 272,500).

RNZ Concert was slightly up to 163,800. Commercial radio as a whole was down 65,000 to 3.43m on the same survey.

Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith has demanded an improvement in RNZ’s radio audiences. RNZ’s newly-appointed board chair Brent Impey has also stated the public broadcaster is “coming after” Newstalk ZB, in a much more aggressive stance than his predecessor Jim Mather.

Results slow to move
GfK results are, by their methodology, relatively slow to move. RNZ’s improvement against the industry trend in this survey mirrors results from the same time last year, which preceded a fall back again in the first survey of this year. A long-term trend of sustained audience growth for RNZ is not yet evident. Total commercial radio audiences have also not consistently grown in recent GfK surveys.

RNZ’s website, however, has had much stronger and more consistent audience growth. After a redesign of its homepage, the audience in July according to Nielsen was 1.78 million, up 8.3 percent on June and the highest ever recorded for rnz.co.nz.

The result put it 69,000 unique users shy of nzherald.co.nz, which trailed Stuff (up 3 percent to 2.2 million).

RNZ’s website audience has more than doubled in three years from 880,000 in July 2023 to the record 1.78m result last month. Growth on social platforms has been strong too, with over 1.1 million followers across RNZ’s main accounts engaging heavily in a mix of investigations, daily news, current affairs, culture and sport.

The audience growth has come at the same time as RNZ consolidates its position as the most-trusted news source for New Zealanders.

A survey by Verian for RNZ asked people if how strongly they agreed they could trust different media brands.

• 57 percent agreed they could trust RNZ
• 53 percent agreed they could trust TVNZ
• 48 percent agreed they could trust NZ Herald

Following brands
Stuff (45 percent), Whakaata Māori (39 percent) and Sky TV (36 percent) followed. All brands scored higher for trust than in most previous surveys dating back to 2020.

RNZ chief news officer Mark Stevens said the results confirmed RNZ’s approach to delivering quality, original and relevant news, information and entertainment across platforms was working.

“The news media is under regular attack from politicians and commentators trying to undermine the public’s trust in what we deliver every day,” Stevens said.

“But at RNZ, we’re focused on our core job of delivering the kind of public interest journalism our audiences value.

“We know we have to work hard to earn and keep the trust of our audiences and we have more to do. But it’s very pleasing to see RNZ continuing to set the standard for trust.”