In its 100th year Radio New Zealand (RNZ), the nation’s public broadcaster, saw an increase in trust by the Kiwi population but that was paired with a significant drop in listening.
The growth in trust was shown in an audience survey by Verian Research of 2000 New Zealanders. 56% agreed RNZ is an organisation you could trust, up from 49% on the previous result. 78% believed it’s important to have a public broadcaster (up two points and the highest results RNZ has achieved) and 64% believed RNZ provides a valuable service (up by three points).
Despite a decline in ratings (see below), 79% of all New Zealanders consume RNZ content each month either through its channels, via its content sharing strategy with other media outlets or both. Time spent listening on digital platforms increased from 24 minutes to 42 minutes.
Live radio listening for the broadcaster, measured through the GfK but not published when Commercial Radio Survey 1 was released last week, show RNZ’s combined share (RNZ National and RNZ Concert) for Survey 1 2025 down 1.0 to 10.6% from the last survey. This puts it eighth behind leader Newstalk ZB and then six music stations.
RNZ Chief Executive and Editor-in-Chief Paul Thompson said:
“Over recent months we have worked hard to introduce improvements to RNZ National, and we will continue to do so, starting with Nights in June. We want to make sure we deliver highly quality, compelling, and informative content to our audiences.
We are making some changes to our nightly schedule from next month that allow for more time in the early evening for live radio, for host interaction and discussion. Our research has shown that listening to live radio at nights is all about connection and we have a lot of talent to draw on to foster that sense of connection and community which is at the heart of live radio.”
These results comes days after $18m budget cuts were announced for the broadcaster over the next four years.
