Two key industry surveys delivered a strong finish to 2023 for NZ Herald owner NZME, which retained its position as the country’s largest multi-media company.

More than eight in every 10 Kiwis, or 3.5 million people, connect with its platforms.

This is according to the Gfk Commercial Radio and Nielsen Readership surveys, both of which were released on what is dubbed “Super Thursday” in the industry.

Starting on the audio side, NZME has continued to grow audience share across its radio network.

Newstalk ZB is once again the number-one commercial radio network in the country, and The Mike Hosking Breakfast has the most listeners at breakfast time.

Fletch, Vaughan and Hayley on ZM had the most listeners of any music station in the breakfast timeslot.

NZME’s podcast network has also been the top podcast network in the country since the Triton NZ Podcast Ranker was introduced more than two years ago, with an audience of more than 1m and more than 7.5m monthly podcast downloads.

“I’m proud to continue to grow our share across the commercial radio network, and to have the number-one commercial radio station in the country is a fantastic achievement,” said NZME chief audio officer Jason Winstanley.

“With the growth of our digital audio platform iHeartRadio and the ongoing success of our podcast network, NZME is well-positioned to meet our target to be ‘number one in audio’.”.

NZME also recently announced the addition of Megan Papas to Jono and Ben’s breakfast show on The Hits, and Polly ‘PJ’ Harding and Matty McLean as new co-hosts of The Hits’ Drive show for 2024, further bolstering its extensive list of talented presenters across all its radio networks.

On the publishing side, NZME is also celebrating strong results, with its publishing brands reaching 2.4m Kiwis weekly.

The NZ Herald website reaches more than 2m Kiwis monthly, up 13 per cent on the same period in 2022, and NZME remains number one for daily newspapers, with 53 per cent more readers than its nearest competitor.

NZME chief content officer and NZ Herald managing editor Murray Kirkness says NZME continues to accelerate digital transformation to meet the changing needs of readers and audiences nationwide.

“We’re proud to reach more than 2.4m Kiwis across our publishing brands,” Kirkness said.

“High-quality trusted journalism continues to be our absolute focus and a critical driver of our business, and our audiences nationwide continue to engage with our platforms, knowing that they’ll find the news worth knowing.”

NZME also recently made changes to its newsroom operating model, with the separation of its digital and print operations to ensure a sustainable, high-performing digital news operation, while also delivering its many print publications nationwide.

The changes have seen the appointment of several senior journalists across NZME into new senior newsroom roles:

Along with Lois Turei, head of cultural partnerships and newsroom diversity, and Duncan Bridgeman, business managing editor, they make up NZME newsroom’s senior leadership team.

“I’m really pleased to have now confirmed our senior leadership team, who I’m confident will lead our newsroom to success, ensuring we continue to deliver on our promise of keeping people in the know and delivering news worth knowing,” Kirkness said.

“With such an experienced, talented group of leaders and our high-performing team of journalists in our newsrooms across the country, I’m confident we will meet our strategic target to be New Zealand’s leading news destination.”

NZME chief executive Michael Boggs said these results built on the recent success of the organisation.

“Just last week at our NZME Investor Day, we shared our new three-year digital-led strategy, clearly setting our strategic priorities for the business,” he said.

“At NZME, we’re a business that never sleeps, and we have an awesome team of 1200 people who all play their part in achieving results like we’ve seen today. With the economy showing some signs of recovery, we have big ambitions for 2024, and we have a fabulous team to deliver on our strategic targets and grow our business even further.

“I want to say a huge thanks to all our team – I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved in what has been a challenging year, and I cannot wait to see what 2024 brings.”