When GFK took over the radio survey, it promised more frequent reporting over the course of the year, and the researcher has deliver in this regard, releasing the latest figures just over two months after the first round of results were made public in May.
Like all media channels, radio is going through a period of enormous flux. And to stay relevant in this changing environment, radio jocks have had to evolve to stay relevant. We chat to ZM’s afternoon jocks Jase Hawkins and PJ Harding to find out how they’re dealing with the challenges of doing their day jobs while simultaneously coming up with creative ideas that brands can use across channels.
Pandora has announced a new partnership that sees the music-streaming company hitch a ride with Uber. From this week, Pandora will be integrated directly within the Uber driver app, giving drivers the ability to manage their Pandora stations and rides in a single place.
NZME chief executive Michael Boggs shares a few thoughts on how the publisher’s radio business is performing following this year’s radio survey and why he’s not concerned about Paul Henry’s growth.
Yesterday, a picture was widely circulated showing Hilary Barry carrying a box of Moët into the MediaWorks office. And it’s more than likely that other employees at the media company will be taking a few more laps to the local Liquorland today, because nothing provides a better reason for heavy drinking than the release of the radio results. This will also be the case for NZME, which will similarly cracking open a few chilled beverages this evening. But none will be celebrating harder than the Mai FM crew, who had a particularly strong survey.
Industry happenings at MYOB, PRINZ, Salt & Pepper, DDB, Bauer Media, Clemenger BBDO/ Proximity and TV3.
Roy Morgan has revealed that Kiwi media habits in the morning are shifting online, with a recent study showing that the proportion of New Zealanders accessing online media channels has surpassed those reading the newspaper or watching television. However, radio still remains comfortably at the top of the pile in terms of the preferred media channel, with 40.2 percent of Kiwis still tuning into the airwaves every day.
Podcast nerds rejoiced last week when the second season of Serial, the most popular podcast ever made, was launched. And as the medium matures and grows in popularity, brands are starting to get more involved, either through advertising on the good ones or, in some cases, making their own.
Auckland’s 95bFM is currently celebrating its 45th birthday. And, as part of “The 95bFM Bombathon” campaign, a throwback to a 1990 pledge-drive campaign that hopes to raise $45,000, the DJs are putting their feet up and auctioning off three hours of airtime in which the winners can take over the station from 9pm to 12am on Sunday night.
As Paul Casserly’s excellent documentary Radio Punks showed earlier this year, the story of student radio in New Zealand is full of interesting twists, turns and characters. And up-and-coming student directors Olly Clifton and Benjamin Zambo, who are currently in year 13 at Western Springs College in Auckland, have added to the oeuvre by giving their take on bFM, which started as a capping stunt in 1969 under the moniker Radio Bosom, grew into one of the most vibrant media brands in the country in the ’90s and is now attempting to compete against consolidation and a proliferation of other media options now available to the young’uns.
In July this year the record was broken for the longest solar-powered flight at five hours, and now, while not quite so impressive, RadioLive will make national broadcasting history tomorrow afternoon when it produces a three-hour show, powered on solar energy alone.
As part of a content partnership with MediaWorks, we’ve asked a few of the company’s programme directors about the performance of their brands, the state of radio and the importance of digital channels. More FM was one of the few brands to increase its audience in the recent T2 radio survey. And network programme director Christian Boston says its dual strategy is paying dividends.
As part of a content partnership with MediaWorks, we’ve asked a few of the company’s programme directors about the performance of their brands, the state of radio and the importance of digital channels. And while The Edge dropped listeners in the latest survey, just like most of the other stations, it still has the biggest audience in all the land and it’s betting big on the multiplatform approach. We had a yarn with Rodger Clamp about how it all comes together.
As part of a content partnership with MediaWorks, we’ve asked a few of the company’s programme directors about the performance of their brands, the state of radio and the importance of digital channels. And, despite a dearth of good, new rock music and the encroaching mainstream appeal of hip hop and electronic music, The Rock is still luring plenty of listeners, says Brad King.
As part of a content partnership with MediaWorks, we’ve asked a few of the company’s programme directors about the performance of their brands, the state of radio and the importance of digital channels. And the rising tide of hip hop and RnB in popular culture is lifting the Mai FM boat along with it and attracting a big, young audience around the nation, says Philip Bell.
The radio survey period is usually typified by a pair of contrasting situations. On the one side, you have the silence of radio executives who are precluded from saying anything about the survey lest their comments interfere with the accuracy of the results. And on the other side, you have have a flood of loud, in-your-face promotions with the sole purpose of pushing listeners in the direction of MediaWorks and NZME. But does this approach even work? And is radio promo season set to become a thing of the past?
Structure, planning and order aren’t words often associated with student radio. And why should they be? The raw spontaneity of these services is exactly what makes them so appealing to the university students who intermittently tune in to listen to ramblings of young radio jocks cutting their teeth on the airwaves. And it was this rawness that FCB aimed to tap into with a series of radio ads and online videos created to promote local documentary Radio Punks: the student radio story, which recently aired on Prime TV.
Since its inception in 2013, Radio New Zealand’s (RNZ) digital brand The Wireless has grown quickly, attracting a new audience of readers that were largely disconnected from the legacy structures of the state broadcaster. This upward trajectory has seen the website’s average audience climb from 700 daily users last year to 3,000 this year. And the RNZ executive team is now hoping to spread this success across all its digital properties with the appointment of The Wireless editor Marcus Stickley as the digital features editor. PLUS: digital teams restructure, a tale of two Tobys and a RNZ new website on the cards.
NZME contributed AU$203.7 million revenue and a net profit of AU$30.7 million to APN’s financial figures, but the performance of the various arms—publishing, radio and ecommerce—of the organisation was relatively flat when compared to the figures posted in the previous year. And while Hastings confirmed that digital registrations for the Herald were going to be launched, she said that there were no plans to introduce a paywall this year.
Pandora recently announced it’s planning to launch a sponsored listening product that will enable brands to give listeners an hour of ad-free streaming through the service. The initiative, which is already live in the US, is set to launch in the local market in the second quarter of 2015, giving local advertisers another means by which to access users on the platform.
Two-way radio company Tait Communications has been putting its products through hell. The devices have been dropped 100 metres from a drone, crushed by a 52-tonne tank, washed in a dishwasher, set on fire, punched repeatedly by a boxer and, most recently, smashed with a golf club. So why exactly is the Christchurch-based company putting its products through a veritable catalogue of medieval torture techniques?
Over 234,000 people have downloaded podcasts in the last four weeks, according to data collected by Nielsen. So StopPress spoke to the major radio networks to find out what they’re doing in this space.
Generally, the radio survey coincides with a tornado of rushed interviews, press releases and victory-claiming promotions from both sides of the commercial network divide. This time, however, the survey results uncharacteristically wafted by with little response from either side. StopPress gives a rundown of the results and looks at the survey standoff between MediaWorks and NZME. PLUS: a consideration of how the survey might change in the future.
Several weeks ago, Colenso BBDO launched Pedigree’s Found app, an innovative tool developed in conjunction with Google with the aim of giving dog owners a digital tool to find their lost pets. At the time of the app’s launch, the team at Colenso mentioned that the new tech trinket would serve as precursor to the launch of Pedigree’s new global platform. And overnight (in New Zealand) this new platform came to fruition via a pair of TVCs bearing the slogan that launched in Australia and Brazil.
The Campbell Live saga has shown that commerce and current affairs often make uneasy bedfellows. But across on a different medium, the publicly funded Radio New Zealand and the commercially minded NZME are jumping into bed, with iHeartRadio now streaming Radio New Zealand National, Radio New Zealand Concert and Radio New Zealand International. And both sides think it’s a win-win.
The radio industry has come to an agreement that the old diary survey system is aniquated. Scott Keddie looks at what a revamped survey might look like.
FCB has won an Orca for the second month in a row, this time for its radio ad called ‘The Tale of Bertie the Dancing Pig’ as part of a campaign for Gregg’s Rich Red Tomato Sauce.
NZME is set to launch its dedicated rural radio station Hokonui Radio in Hawera next week, with the aim of targeting the large farming community that lives there.
Until recently, advertising across MediaWorks’ various properties was sold by independent sales arms. And while this approach worked at a time when the lines between channels were clearly defined, it has become largely impracticable to a company that is already running integrated campaigns on major shows and is also on the verge of launching an ambitious cross-channel show fronted by Paul Henry. Since last May MediaWorks has been restructuring its sales teams, and the company’s head of revenue Liz Fraser and commerical director Paul Hancox believe they have now finalised a structure that is better suited to a landscape typified by blurred media lines.
Following last week’s announcement that Kiwi FM would be switching off, MediaWorks has now released a statement saying that new nationwide radio brand called Magic will launch on April 20. Targeted at 50- to 69-year-olds, the new station will be programmed by The Breeze content director Ian Avery and feature classic tracks from the likes of Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, Roy Orbison, Dusty Springfield and Rod Stewart, among others. And this move could make commercial sense, given the high level of disposable income this group has in its pocket.