New Zealand GfK Survey 2 is an extraordinarily consistent affair, showing not just the loyalty of listeners but the effectiveness of the survey tool in reflecting their habits. NZME‘s Newstalk ZB was again No 1, and by some margin for Mike Hosking on breakfast, but the return of Simon Barnett to MediaWorks’ More FM yielded the biggest gains for any station.
Simon returned to More FM at the start of this year. He had worked for the station for two decades before stepping away to look after his wife Jodi after she was diagnosed with brain cancer. Jodi died in October 2023. He returned to radio and a Drive role on Newstalk ZB before the current role.
Despite being on breakfast radio Simon has chosen not to talk about the loss until a two hour sit down chat last week with top NZ podcast Between Two Beers, hosted by Steve Holloway and Seamus Marten (the three are pictured, main). This is a deviation from the survey results, but so powerful was that chat that I will share it below and recommend a box of tissues. It clearly felt right to have such an in depth conversation in a space not constrained by ad breaks, comps and news.
Simon’s return saw More FM have a 1% uptick on breakfast, more than any other station.
While the stations overall saw steady listenership, the same cannot be said for the cumes. The cumulative audience dropped across almost all stations with More FM one of the few with additional people checking out the station.
The public broadcaster RNZ usually reveals their results a few days after the GfK release. They are reeling from some damning statistics in an 11 page report they commissioned into their listenership decline. With overall station listening so steady across the nation, RNZ will be hoping for similar.
