The first commercial radio ratings covering new talk station Today FM are out and, while it's still too early to be definitive, the challenge to grab people's attention remains immense
Newstalk ZB has slipped from its historic highs in the latest audience ratings but its new talk radio challenger is yet to make much of a dent after three months on air.
Newstalk's weekly average audience nationwide dropped from 744,000 to 719,000 and its chief music station competitor The Breeze climbed strongly by 30,000 listeners to 654,000, closing what had become a yawning gap in the commercial market.
Newstalk's market share dropped substantially in Auckland and dipped in major markets and nationwide overall. It remains clearly the No 1 commercial station and so far it is something of a no-contest with MediaWorks' new talk operation Today FM, which registered just 136,200 weekly listeners nationally in this GfK survey.
The survey, however, covers a much shorter period for Today than for the other participants, including Newstalk, which benefit from audience questioning going back to June last year for the regions and January for metro areas. Today's numbers only measure the old MagicTalk from those dates to March 20 and then 13 weeks of Today FM.
Newstalk's breakfast king Mike Hosking saw his ratings fall from highs reached in the first survey of the year announced in May - his market share nationally fell from 23.6 to 20.6 and in Auckland plunged from 30.3 to 22.4. These are still numbers that any music station, Today or even the separately surveyed RNZ National would give their bonuses for.
While Hosking attracts 504,200 listeners across an average week nationally (down 11,000), 210,400 in Auckland, 36,600 in Wellington and 55,300 in Christchurch, the MagicTalk-Today breakfast result was 68,500 nationwide, 19,500 in Auckland, 2500 in Wellington and 3400 in Christchurch. Hosts Tova O'Brien and Mark Dye might not be discouraged, given the survey deficiencies and the long-term project Today has undertaken to try to take a bite out of Newstalk's audience and advertising riches.
In drivetime, Heather du Plessis Allan's Newstalk show recorded a share of 14.6 nationwide to Lloyd Burr's Today show with 1.4. The drivetime figure for Today perhaps carries a little more meaning than other shows because Burr was in the same role for MagicTalk in the earlier survey period.
None of the Today slots through the day are yet bucking the low market share being carried through from the old brand, with Duncan Garner's morning show flat at 2.2, the afternoon at 1.6 and the night programme at 2.2 in the nationwide figures.
Newstalk's overall national market share in this latest survey is 15.2, down from 16.9 last time, and for Auckland it is 16.8, a significant drop from 21.5.
But the overall MagicTalk-Today combo in 2022, at a 2.1 market share nationwide and 1.0 in the big target market in Auckland (ranking it 19th), is lower than what MediaWorks' old talk brand Radio Live achieved in the days before the combined audience numbers for Magic music and MagicTalk stations started being logged in 2019.
In the equivalent survey released in July 2018, Radio Live pulled a market share of 2.9 for NZ and 4.2 for Auckland - in a market when Newstalk was at a comparatively modest 10.9 nationally and 13.9 in Auckland.
MediaWorks' director of News and Talk Dallas Gurney pointed to this 2022 survey being a combination of the new Today FM with its predecessor MagicTalk. "While we're not going to see any full results for Today FM until early next year, we're pleased with the momentum being made."
Elsewhere, MediaWorks trumpeted a gain in its overall stable's total market share, rising to 54.4 from 53.5, while rival station owner NZME saw its overall share of the market dip from 38.4 to 37.2 - leaving the gap between the two market giants at 17.2 points in MediaWorks' favour.
In music, MediaWorks dominates. The Breeze was second most listened to station nationally, after Newstalk ZB, with that total of 654,000 across an average week, ahead of stable mates More FM on 593,000 and The Edge on 581,200. NZME's best music station ZM was in 5th with 547,900 weekly listeners.
MediaWorks' content director Leon Wratt noted The Breeze, The Rock and More FM took out the top three spots in the commercially coveted 25-54 demographic.
NZME's media release said ZM scored the most listeners nationwide across "the highly competitive 18-39 and 25-54 year-old demographics."
Chief radio officer Jason Winstanley put Newstalk ZB's "skyrocketing" listenership over the past two and a half years down to people being at home during Covid lockdowns. "It's pleasing to see that the station's audience numbers remain incredibly high, well above any other network and significantly higher than pre-Covid levels."
* Update: RNZ released selected audience numbers on Friday, showing RNZ National's weekly cumulative audience was on average down to 579,000 a week, from 633,000 in the last GfK survey. That drop of 54,000 is one of the network's biggest falls between surveys. RNZ National was the country's No 1 station by weekly audience as recently as 2020, with 703,000 listeners, but is now in fifth after Newstalk, The Breeze, More and The Edge.
RNZ no longer provides audience numbers for Morning Report or its other shows. Its website rnz.co.nz has lifted in the Nielsen online audience survey from 821,000 a year ago to 928,000, which gives it near equality with TVNZ, the other part of the planned merger of public broadcasters next year.
