An audience in the hand versus one in Neverland

I have some friendly advice for Radio New Zealand: Stick to the radio audience you know you can get, rather than the one you think you would like to have.

That advice is based on the belief that RNZ National’s cumulative audience decline from more than 700,000 in 2020 to less than 500,000 today is due in no small measure to its strategy of seeking new listeners at the expense of its old ones.

‘Old’ in this sense has two meanings. First it denotes those who has since switched elsewhere or off. Secondly it means, yes, listeners aged over 60 who are as valuable as those below it.

In both its music and talk programming, RNZ National has sought to meet social and cultural targets that are both worthy and in line with movements within New Zealand society. It plays music that supports local musicians and music production. It has interspersed te reo into its dialogue and promoted culturally diverse programming. Its subject matter, and sometimes its approach, have shifted to reflect these new emphases.

In the process it has alienated older listeners used to certain formats that reflected their interests and tastes.

I do not for one moment oppose the desire to reflect changing social and cultural patterns, nor a desire to attract a younger audience. However, I believe RNZ has made a fundamental mistake in thinking it can do this through broadcast radio.

The latest “Where are the Audiences?” report from NZ on Air convincingly points to the folly of trying to attract a younger audience through broadcast radio. They simply do not listen to it.

The daily reach of broadcast radio among 15-39 year olds sits at only 35 per cent of the potential audience in that age group. Compare that with the 69 per cent who use music streaming. The 40-59 age group is a little better with 42 per cent listening to broadcast radio. However, it is in the 60-plus category that radio scores best – 53 per cent.

Now look back to 2020. Radio listenership among the 15-39 group was slightly higher than it is today – around 37 per cent – and the 40-59 age group sat at 48 per cent. However, the 60-plus audience sat at 65 per cent and had been roughly at that mark since 2016. Why has radio shed so much of what might be considered core audience?

It is not because that older audience is dying off – well, not in the numbers the declining listenership would suggest. The number of New Zealanders aged over 65 is growing. So, too, is the number still living over the age of 85. Radio listenership, therefore, has a strong core that will survive almost as long as broadcast radio itself.

In a talk I gave last week I predicted the early demise of linear broadcast television and said radio’s life would be more attenuated. However, I was under no illusion that it, too, will be replaced by on-demand digital streaming services in the foreseeable future.

That is where RNZ’s younger audience focus should be. It should forget about radio as the vehicle for reaching the 15-39 market and, indeed, anyone under 50.

In 2020 plans were revealed for RNZ to replace its Concert FM with a youth-oriented channel and shifting classical music to an AM frequency. Reactions from RNZ listeners to the prospect of classical music being broadcast only in mono sound were highly negative and the plan was shelved. RNZ should thank its lucky stars. The ‘youth network’ would have been a short-lived hiding to nothing.

Both of the RNZ networks are national treasures. They provide non-commercial services that stand apart from the dog-eat-dog ratings wars fought by commercial broadcasters. That does not mean they should not be conscious of audience numbers and, in an interview with the New Zealand Herald’s Shayne Currie RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson expressed his concern over the latest survey that put RNZ National’s cumulative audience at 494,500.

Currie noted that RNZ National’s flagship Morning Report has shed more than 29,000 listeners between the two surveys so far this year. It now has a cumulative audience of 347,400. The Herald’s Media Insider did not lose the opportunity to promote his own company’s Newstalk ZB – by noting that Mike Hosking’s show now has a lead of 100,000 over Morning Report. Not too long ago RNZ’s programme led the field.

I am among those who now regard listening to Morning Report more as a duty than a pleasure. It has an earnest quality that I sometimes find irritating. I sense there are quite a few in my (advanced) age group with similar feelings. And that is not a good place for RNZ to be.

The public broadcaster should have a strategic rethink. It should repurpose its broadcast radio offering to better reflect the needs and wishes of its core (older) audience. That means a return to the values and content that attracted its peak audiences. Its starting point might be an audit of that peak programming to determine what attracted the audience. There is no harm whatsoever in recapturing what worked and removing what has since alienated the audience. A good example is its music offerings. They should also have much more regard to the preferences of the audience than to creative and cultural imperatives that may be worthwhile in themselves, but which are, in fact, at odds with the audience’s tastes.

Its quest to reach a younger audience (and thus sustain its long term future) should not be directed at broadcast radio but at new digital services.

RNZ has limited resources with which to engage in green fields projects, but does it need to go it alone? Under Paul Thompson, RNZ has developed a commendable level of cooperation with other media through both content sharing and the Local Democracy Reporting scheme. Many of those media organisations face the same challenges as RNZ in seeking and retaining a younger audience. Joint ventures with like-minded partners seems an obvious option for RNZ in strategic development.

The numbers that are staring RNZ in the face suggest it is failing to get the strategy right. It should make it clear to both its government funder and to the public that its first priority must be to meet the needs of the audience it has (or had). The role it plays in social and cultural development must sit within the context of that first imperative, not replace it. Where that social and cultural role sits outside the needs of the radio audience, it should be pursued through other platforms and by other means.

Radio New Zealand’s own release about the latest audience figures was a masterful piece of conjuring.

Headed “RNZ reaching more New Zealanders than ever”, it spoke of “77 per cent of New Zealanders 18-plus accessing its content a month”. That figure included all of the content it shares with 60 other media organisations from Stuff and NZME to small regional websites.

Only in the seventh paragraph was there acknowledgement of its declining radio audience. CEO Paul Thompson acknowledged it was an area in which RNZ wanted to do better.

The tenor of the release was the digital future, and it is obviously one that RNZ must embrace. It stated that people were “choosing new ways to engage with our content”.

The decline in its radio audience suggests that, rather than finding new ways to engage, some are turning their backs on RNZ because they no longer regard it as meeting their needs.