The 2025 NZ Radio & Podcast Awards winners were announced last night at an awards ceremony at Sky City Theatre in Auckland hosted by Jeremy Corbett. The awards recognise radio & podcasting industries’ on-air personalities, programming, news & sports coverage, promotions, creativity & production, sales and community involvement.
RBA & Awards Chair Jana Rangooni said:
“Listeners use radio for news, information, entertainment, music and sometimes just for company. In times of emergencies, we are still the primary media people turn to, to find out what’s going on.
In 2024, the podcast categories were expanded further to 16, in recognition of this rapidly growing section of the increasingly diverse audio industry. It was great to see that we had 115 entries from a wide range of podcast creators, all of whom are creating world class podcast content.”
New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME) won more than 30 awards. Newstalk ZB was Station of the Year – Network, Heather du Plessis-Allan the Sir Paul Holmes Broadcaster of the Year and Mike Hosking (above) won Best Talk Presenter – Breakfast or Drive for the eleventh time.
Marcus Lush was awarded Best Talk Presenter – Non-Breakfast for a ninth consecutive time with Jason Pine, Daniel Wrightson and newsreaders Niva Retimanu and Malcolm Jordan also winners. The Country’s Jamie Mackay ONZM received the Outstanding Contribution to Radio Award, just over a year after being awarded an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to broadcasting and the rural community.
ZM’s Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley again won Best Music Breakfast Show – Network Award. Coast’s Lorna Riley won Best Music Network Host and The Hits’ Hayley Bath Best Local Music Host.
Sportscafe-ish won Best Podcast and Best Sports Podcast, Kōrero, Best Reo Māori Podcast and Heaven’s Helpline Best History and Documentary Podcast for iHeartRadio NZ.
The full list of nominees and winners is below.
