Post-Prelim Research

For the last 10 years NZ have seen a revolution in our media consumption habits, driven by the population of smartphones, the rise of social media and the rollout of broadband. Despite the satisfaction we take in complaining about their prices, New Zealand has now had relatively cheap, fast and plentiful data, at home and away from it. And it has transformed our behavior in alternately exciting and confronting ways.

The use of linear television has almost halved in the last five years. What do New Zealanders do instead watching linear TV is streaming. Online video – particularly YouTube – remains to be very strong. But it’s subscription video, or SVoD, which has risen steeply, to functionally replace television as a core platform for this half of the population. This category is dominated with Netflix, which is now in a massive 64% of households within NZ – this is higher than Sky TV at its height, and not far off the number of households with a working television which is 76%.

Two things to remember about Netflix: it’s got hardly any New Zealand content on it and does nothing to push its users toward what NZ content is there. And it is entirely ad-free, meaning those wanting to influence and communicate with that audience, from business to government, have to try and find them elsewhere. I believe this is why there is a great percentage of New Zealanders using Netflix as it is Ad-free, no one likes ads popping up every time you try and watch a movie.

In the context of this Generation, that flat figure is quite extraordinary. There is a continued decline of radio. Known as the "cockroach" of media, it none-the-less has registered a similar loss in consumption to Television. This is predictably more pronounced in under 40s, who are more likely to play online games than listen to the radio on any given day.

There is a sustained decline in music listenership too, though there is reason to believe that this is more of a behavioral shift than a decline in consumption. Music listening is more likely to happen on YouTube or TikTok than on a CD or even Spotify.

Online video narrowly reaches New Zealanders each day, but SVoD and podcasts are the only media to have grown to their size of daily audiences in the past 12 months.

New Zealanders still to spend significantly more time watching TV (118 minutes) rather than using any other media platform, but the gap is closing. SVoD comes next at 86 minutes then radio at 74 minutes.

5-39 year old's where digital media dominates – 82% use online video daily, 72% use SVoD and 68% use music streaming. Radio is at a current 36% with TV at a 35%.

40-59 year old's who use a wider range of media – TV is still on top at 61% but online video is catching behind at 58%, while SVoD and radio are equal, but dragging behind on 48%.

60 years and over where traditional media dominates, but digital is not growing – 83% use TV daily and 65% use radio – online video is at a shocking 26% and SVoD even lower at 22%.

The results from the NZ On Air survey showed the Covid-19 pandemic had only a “slight, temporary” impact on audiences behavior, with most audience trends continuing in the same direction as they had been before 2020.

Spotify has still continued to dominate music consumption, with 27% of Kiwis kids aged 15 years and over using it daily.

This year NZ On Air has decided to survey the Instagram and TikTok usages within Kiwi Kids. Instagram had reached a majority of 20% of Kiwis Kids each day, while TikTok comes in behind reaching only 11% of Kiwi Kids daily.

Television has continued to attract the biggest audiences in NZ between the hours of 6pm to 8.30pm. From 8.30pm onwards, SVoD services and online videos were challenging television for audience availabilities, as most New Zealanders are expecting something to watch in-between 6pm to 8:30pm which may tickle their fancy, but after that they get bored and decide to watch something online, where they have a vast majority of movies they can choose from.