NZ Herald | 1 Sep 2023

RNZ boss: We ‘want and expect’ Morning Report’s ratings to grow again; ASB move falls flat with Kiwi agencies; ‘Thomas Cranmer’ unmasked; Roles gone as Warner Bros. Discovery overhauls marketing team; TVNZ’s CEO hunt.

On the face of it, RNZ is in the most privileged position of all New Zealand media businesses. Unencumbered by the whims of the commercial market, the publicly-owned broadcaster is funded entirely by taxpayers and has just received a huge boost to its coffers – a $25.7 million increase to its annual budget.

It comes at a time when every other major media business – NZME, Stuff, MediaWorks, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sky and TVNZ – is in careful cost management mode, including, for some, job cuts, sinking-lid policies and tight restraints on the likes of travel, entertainment and other spending.

But as RNZ CEO Paul Thompson and his team consider their strategic audience initiatives with a new RNZ budget, there’s another set of figures they’ll also want to see super-charged.

RNZ’s latest radio ratings do not make for particularly happy reading for the state broadcaster. Its total radio audience is at its lowest number in more than three and a half years.

While RNZ’s ratings are reported separately from the commercial stations, the public entity has gone from essentially number one in the overall New Zealand market in 2020 to number five today, based on total cumulative audience.

At the start of 2020, RNZ had a healthy overall national audience of 654,306. If those RNZ numbers were to be compared alongside the commercial market, RNZ would be a clear number one, followed by three music stations (The Breeze, More FM and The Edge), with ZB in fifth spot, with 536,499 listeners.

Fast forward three and a half years and positions have been reversed. Using the same comparison, ZB now claims the top spot with 677,643 listeners and RNZ has 532,351. The same three music stations sit between them.

While RNZ’s ratings are reported separately from the commercial stations, the public entity has gone from essentially number one in the overall New Zealand market in 2020 to number five today, based on total cumulative audience.

At the start of 2020, RNZ had a healthy overall national audience of 654,306. If those RNZ numbers were to be compared alongside the commercial market, RNZ would be a clear number one, followed by three music stations (The Breeze, More FM and The Edge), with ZB in fifth spot, with 536,499 listeners.

Fast forward three and a half years and positions have been reversed. Using the same comparison, ZB now claims the top spot with 677,643 listeners and RNZ has 532,351. The same three music stations sit between them.

RNZ’s change of fortune is reflected in the performance of its flagship Morning Report breakfast show.

At the start of 2020, Morning Report enjoyed an audience of just over half a million listeners. That has fallen by more than 120,000 in three years to sit today at 380,152.

Newstalk ZB breakfast host Mike Hosking was a distant second to Morning Report three years ago – he was more than 100,000 listeners behind back then. But today he is almost 100,000 ahead.

“We do want and expect Morning Report to grow again in the next 12 months,” Thompson told Media Insider.

So what’s driven this fall in ratings – and is it salvageable?

So what’s driven this fall in ratings – and is it salvageable?

For the past six years, we have been in a relentless news cycle.

It started internationally with the election of Donald Trump as US president in 2017 and has continued through the lens of war and massive economic challenges.

In New Zealand, we witnessed horrific events in Christchurch in March 2019 and at White Island in December that year, followed, of course, by the global pandemic from early 2020 and the dreadful weather events of 2023. In between, much of the political and social debate has become polarised and angry.

Thompson says “news fatigue is a well-documented issue for most talk radio networks globally, with time spent listening and audience numbers tracking down from their pandemic highs”.

“Our research tells us that the serious in-depth news we often specialise in is out of sync with some audiences who have wearied of all the grim news stories that have happened recently, including the pandemic.”

But that doesn’t fully explain why ZB has grown ratings and maintained its number-one spot, even ahead of music stations.

In my opinion, part of it comes down to perception of content.

RNZ enjoys and promotes itself as New Zealand’s most-trusted media organisation, according to an annual survey. It shared that honour in this year’s AUT Trust in Media survey with TVNZ and the Otago Daily Times.

A Curia poll on media bias earlier this year placed RNZ as slightly left of centre, compared with Newstalk ZB’s position as more heavily right of centre.

Journalists will take great exception to any accusations of them being biased.

Nevertheless, critics’ perceptions of RNZ programming being too “woke” or being left-wing may have partly caused an impact on listening numbers, especially as more scrutiny fell on the Labour Government’s ongoing pandemic response, especially from 2021 onwards.

On the other hand, ZB often receives feedback from its listeners that Mike Hosking is the only broadcaster or journalist asking hard questions of the Government, as evidenced by his weekly interview with Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. That’s also untrue – but nonetheless, a perception in some quarters.

There are other factors.

ZB seems to have benefited more following Today FM’s sudden closure in March. While the MediaWorks station was not able to generate significant ratings in its short time on air, its listeners may have been more inclined to move to ZB when the microphones fell silent.

Also, Morning Report has seen a major change in its line-up this year with Ingrid Hipkiss replacing Susie Ferguson and joining Corin Dann on air.

“Changes always take time to bed in and be reflected in surveys,” says Thompson, who adds he is happy with the refreshed line-up, including changes to First Up with Nathan Rarere that are showing “excellent” results.

“It’s worth noting, however, that election years typically don’t see an increase for talk radio audiences – normally, it’s the opposite. Online audiences tend to show more interest. With that in mind, we aren’t expecting significant change to current survey results till next year.”

Thompson makes the critical point of changing audience demands and habits, driven by the digital revolution.

“We remain focused on growing our overall relevance and engagement with audiences across a number of platforms.”

RNZ’s website audience has remained relatively steady in recent years, generating a unique audience of anywhere between 800,000 and one million people each month. It is generally in a three-way battle with TVNZ’s 1 News and Warner Bros Discovery’s Newshub for third overall spot each month, behind Stuff and NZ Herald.

Thompson pays tribute to ZB. It “has performed strongly and deserves credit for it”, he says.

“RNZ National and Newstalk ZB offer differing formats, content propositions and presentation styles for listeners. The most obvious difference is that RNZ National has a public service Charter which drives decision-making.”

Perhaps RNZ’s troubles are no starker than in the massive Auckland market.

In Auckland, RNZ’s audience has fallen from 197,028 at the start of 2020 to 132,986 today. At breakfast in Auckland, Hosking now has more than double the listeners of Morning Report – 202,815 versus 93,309.

Thompson says RNZ would “love to be stronger in Auckland”.

“But we also have to reflect all of New Zealand, not just a single market. We are always looking for ways to connect with more diverse audiences and it is a key part of our strategy across different platforms in the future. The recent launch of RNZ Asia – devoted to providing unique journalism by or for the Chinese and Indian communities – is a good example of this.”

There are some bright spots for RNZ in the latest ratings.

Wellington remains a stronghold – RNZ overall and Morning Report are still a clear number 1, a reflection of its history as a public broadcaster, and its popularity among public servants.

And RNZ has inched ahead of ZB again in Christchurch for the first time in seven surveys, after being well clear in 2020.

“Everyone at RNZ wants to see [ratings] grow and the only way to do that is to continue to adapt to changing audience needs,” says Thompson.

“But again, we are primarily interested in delivering on our Charter to a diverse range of New Zealanders. This is not done solely through broadcast. For example, our digital numbers were up 10 per cent in July on the previous year.

“And we maintain more than 60 agreements with other outlets which make use of RNZ’s material. We see the great things we do complementing each other to benefit New Zealanders.”