Radio survey results show overall listenership has increased, Mai FM gains over 50k listeners nationwide

  • 28/09/2017
Mai FM is now is the number one breakfast show in Auckland
Mai FM's morning crew Nickson, Nate and Lily Photo credit: MediaWorks

Overall national radio listenership has lifted to a whopping 3,360,100 according to the GfK Total New Zealand Commercial Radio Survey results.

MediaWorks Radio has grown its total listeners by 33,600 to reach 2,308,200 people nationwide across its nine radio brands.

"To see the overall national radio listenership increase for the third time this year is a very positive result for radio," says Leon Wratt, MediaWorks Radio's group content director for music.

"Maybe it's longer commuting times, but hopefully it's just that radio is doing a good job in continuing to put on the entertainment, music and information that people want to listen to."

Along with MediaWorks' successes, rival radio network NZME's current reach is at 1.953 million - up 31,300 from last survey. Both conglomerates underwent some changes in their listenership that points to a trend.

"The story is probably that the 'urban' stations have done really well, so you had Mai FM and Flava both go up. Then the two Top 40 stations - The Edge and ZM - both took a bit of a hit. So there was a bit of a transfer in some audience there," says Mr Wratt.

"I'd say the music cycle has got quite a bit to do with that. Hip-hop and R&B is definitely going through a bit of a strong period at the moment."

For the first time, Mai FM is the number one breakfast show in Auckland, reaching more than 143,300 listeners each morning with hosts Nickson, Nate and Lily. Nationally, Mai FM has increased its overall cumulative audience by 51,100.

Mr Wratt says he's "really proud" of that success, along with Polly and Grant who almost doubled More FM Wellington's listenership from 4.3 percent to a 7.4 percent share.

"They were really strong, the teams are satisfied after obviously a lot of hard work was done, so they all seem pretty happy at the moment."

The general election has also had an effect on the survey results, says Mr Wratt.

"There's no doubt that there was a bump from the election for both RadioLIVE and ZB, so both of those stations should be feeling pretty good today. And potentially, there'll be more to come with Winnie [Winston Peters] holding out on telling us what he's going to do."

The full GfK Total New Zealand Commercial Radio Survey can be read on its official website.

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