Radio survey: everyone wins

MediaWorks and NZME continue to battle it out for their share of the airwaves, both claiming wins in the latest radio survey results.

The Radio Bureau today released its official round of survey results for the year, separated into two categories: audience share, which includes time spent listening, and total number of listeners.

As usual, both media companies have claimed victories and called each other out in their respective press releases (see raw data below.) MediaWorks arguably came away with the top prize, winning 56% of the 25 to 54 market. It has nine stations under its umbrella while NZME has eight.

NZME’s Newstalk ZB won the highest share of listeners for all audiences aged 10-plus, taking out 11.4% of the market. Its results are down 0.2% on last year's but hold a steady 2.2% lead on its closest competitor The Rock. MediaWorks' The Edge garnered the highest number of listeners in this market with 436,000. 

MediaWorks is celebrating a 17% growth for the Paul Henry show in the breakfast slot but then refers to this as a general Radio Live statistic for all audiences 10-plus from 12am to 12am. 

"I would like to single out the enormous success of our first multiplatform breakfast initiative The Paul Henry Show with its growing success in TV being mirrored with these fantastic results on Radio Live," MediaWorks Radio chief executive Wendy Palmer says. 

On the other hand, NZME is pushing stats around audience share specifically during the critical 6am to 8:30am window.

NZME says Hosking has maintained his share nationally during this timeslot at 16.7% versus Paul Henry on 5.8%, and Hosking has also grown his 25 to 54 audience to 8.2%.

"MediaWorks will be very disappointed about the launch of the new multi platform Paul Henry show. It's not working on TV, online, social, and now radio," NZME Radio managing director Dean Buchanan says.

"Radio Live has increased its share overall but it was from a very low base."

Throng reports that RadioLive’s cumulative audience between 6am and 9am has gone from 100,400 last survey to 107,800 this time around with Paul Henry's show now being simulcast on TV3 and RadioLive. NewstalkZB dropped 7000 to 255,000 in the same period.

“One of the key battlegrounds with ZB has been the drive show, with Duncan Garner being introduced to RadioLive and Larry Williams on ZB,” NZME Radio managing director Dean Buchanan says.

Mr Buchanan says Mr Garner’s show sits at 59,300 listeners while Mr Williams' has 151,000. Newstalk ZB general manager Steve Kyte says Mr Garner’s show lost 7000 listeners in the current survey.

“The figure that’s really impressive is that Larry Williams now has an audience of more than double Duncan Garner’s,” he says.

RadioLive held its 3.4% share in the national 25 to 54 demographic, no change from this time last year, while Newstalk ZB gained a mere 0.3% share to hit 5%.

Other MediaWorks stations flourished in the same key audience category, with The Rock coming out on top garnering 198,800 total listeners and a 13.5% audience share.

The Edge placed fifth in this category, with a share of 7.6% and total listener count of 204,100. It fared better in the national 18 to 34 demographic where it came second at 12.6% and 186,200 listeners.

NZME came out guns blazing last week to claim the top total unique website hits for its radio brands in August but didn’t mention audio streams in its press release.

“More of our clients are looking at connecting with customers using all our platforms. They want to approach audiences rather than just a single channel. That’s been more and more of a focus over the last six months,” says Mr Buchanan.

He says radio stations’ online presence has “absolutely” increased revenue. “Radio and online from a client perspective are very powerful,” he says. 

RAW DATA:

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NZME (PDF here)

MediaWorks

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