Radio NZ rating well

Stuff reports:

The “king of breakfast radio” Mike Hosking has been dethroned by state broadcaster RNZ’s Morning Reportprogramme.

RNZ has attracted the highest national audience against commercial radio news rivals in all key time slots, results from a survey released this week show.

It was the first time in 17 years RNZ has been included in a radio survey with its commercial competitors.

The survey by GfK showed RNZ’s flagship Morning Report programme, hosted by former TV personality Guyon Espiner and Susie Ferguson from 6am-9am, had about 386,000 listeners.

I’m not surprised. I think it is the strongest pairing they have had on Morning Report since Sean Plunket left.

RNZ shows Nine to Noon with Kathryn Ryan, Jesse Mulligan in afternoons and Checkpoint with John Campbell were all leading their time slots against rival stations.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson said he was pleased RNZ and commercial stations were now included in the same research.

“This is one that the whole radio industry uses as currency,” he said.

So am I. For decades Radio NZ refused to be part of the main survey, and hence how they rated was basically secret. This was unacceptable for a state owned company. While they are a public broadcaster, and hence not reliant on ratings for advertising income, it is still important to know how many people are listening to them.