Radio Listening Tops 3.5M Weekly Listeners

The latest GfK Commercial Radio Survey audience data released today by the NZ Commercial Radio Industry shows radio listening in 2025 is maintaining its stability and building upon the success achieved in 2024. Total weekly reach has increased by 2%, with a phenomenal 3.5 million weekly listeners reported for just the second time ever.

The Radio Bureau CEO, Alistair Jamison says: “What a cracking way to start the year. The first survey of 2025 shows growth in weekly listeners, growth in daily listeners, growth in time spent listening and growth in average audience. More people listening, more often and for longer has to be great for advertisers.”

Michael Boggs, NZME Chief Executive Officer says: "What we're witnessing in audio audience growth across many global markets is mirrored here in New Zealand. When great content reaches listeners on their terms, across any device they choose, it creates a powerful connection, which is compelling for advertisers. These results are a testament to audio’s enduring and evolving relevance in people's lives." Chief Executive Officer of MediaWorks, Wendy Palmer adds: “Three quarters of NZ continue to listen to commercial radio each week and this is in-part due to the continued growth in accessibility of our content. Device based listening has grown 7.7% since last year, with over 900,000 Kiwis listening on a device each week.”

Alistair Jamison says: “As an industry we are very positive about 2025. Our audience delivery has been rock solid, engagement with audio is high with well over 15 hours listening per week and our footprint continues to grow across devices. Importantly advertisers are increasingly recognising this, with SMI reported revenue up 15% in Q4 2024 and 18% in Q1 2025.”

Jamison concludes: Building on this momentum, in mid-June we will release an updated Infinite Dial research study , as well as some powerful case studies demonstrating audio's impact. I encourage people to look out for these valuable insights to show how advertisers can effectively harness the power of audio to drive business growth.”

Growth from Knowledge.

Over the past 50 years radio and its audiences have changed beyond recognition, and in that time we have been at the forefront of measuring the medium to provide the currency for this dynamic industry. Whether public or commercial radio stations, advertisers or their agencies, what hasn’t changed in half a century is the need for robust, reliable and gold standard audience metrics to support advertising. We are true pioneers of radio audience measurement, and we provide many different solutions for capturing listening behaviour in and outside the home. GfK operates Media Measurement projects in over 25 countries globally and our cutting-edge hybrid measurement system allows listening to be captured from multiple data sources, to truly build a 360°understanding of people’s media consumption behaviour. GfK drives ‘Growth from Knowledge’.

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