One of the pre-requisites of déjà vu is that you knew what happened in the first place.
I have a feeling that the people flooding the New Zealand marketplace with streaming platforms offering boundless content are blissfully unaware of what happened to radio in New Zealand in the 1990s.
In 1989 the local radio market was deregulated and the number of stations rocketed. In 1984 there had been 22 stations but by 1999 the number had reached almost 300. Something had to give, and it did. Rapacious networks began swallowing up stations and the market rapidly became consolidated again.
I feel we are at the 1999 stage with streaming platforms, although the numbers are nowhere near as high as in the heyday of independent radio. Nonetheless we have gone from one dominant operator (Sky TV) to an array of separate operators, each offering the world of your dreams…for a price. There are at least 15 video streaming platforms in addition to Sky’s offering and the on demand services of TVNZ+, Three Now and Māori+.
The top seven, according to NZ on Air’s Where Are The Audiences? 2026 report, are Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Neon, Skysport Now, Apple TV+, and CrunchyRoll (no, I hadn’t heard of it either because I’m not a fan of anime). Then there are nine ‘others’, including Hulu, Acorn, Stan and F1TV (for keen motorsport enthusiasts).
Th NZ on Air/Varian audience research was released last week. You can access it here. It suggests, to me at least, that we may be at the proliferation zenith and are starting to see changes that could lead to some consolidation of the market.
The big three – Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime – have each recorded daily audience shares down on last year. Netflix has by far the largest market share but it has dropped from 42 per cent in 2023 to 36 per cent this year. Disney+ has dropped from 14 per cent to 11 per cent over the same period and Amazon Prime is down one per cent year-on-year (to 10 per cent).
All of the other services have single digit shares which suggest marginal operations in this country.
We are spoiled for choice not only with premium paid services but also with global video content sharing platforms. YouTube is our largest global video sharing platform with a daily share of 44 per cent for the audience. Facebook also takes a further one third share.
Over-abundance may be one reason for the declines. The audience may be spreading more thinly across the range. Certainly, that would account for the drop in Sky’s reach, which has dropped from a quarter of the daily audience in 2024 to 21 per cent today. There are, however, other factors in play across the spectrum.
The researchers believe that cost-of-living pressures may be forcing households to limit the number of subscription services. Streaming video on demand has dropped by six percentage points (to 50 per cent daily reach) while free linear television has risen from 47 per cent to fifty one per cent reach). The gap is even greater when associated video on demand is added to local linear broadcasting. Total local tv now has a daily reach of 63 per cent and not only outstrips the subscription services but also the global video sharing services (YouTube, Facebook etc).
Linear tv had been in almost straight line decline from 2016 (when it had 74 per cent reach) to 2024 (47 per cent). Its four percentage point recovery in the latest survey is encouraging. However, if the flattening use of subscription platforms is tied largely to cost-of-living considerations, the positions could be reversed by improving economic conditions.
I may be one of the South Pacific’s cockeyed optimists, but I don’t put the change in audience preferences solely down to cost considerations. I believe the subscription market has simply become too crowded and audiences are unwilling to pay multiple subscriptions to get what may be only marginally better than linear tv.
Each night I sit down and scroll through the offerings of the services to which we subscribe. The majority of what I scroll past is mind-numbing. Some makes me groan in frustration, and a few leave me with grave fears for the collective mental wellbeing of society. Most of the time the combined schedules leave me in mind of a rockabilly song of my youth: “A Whole Lot of Nothing”.
The net effect is not wonderment at the range of excellent programming available but a frustrating search for a few things that will be worth watching. The digital video environment has become a subset of the reality of the Internet – the promise of a democratised public sphere that instead delivered a money machine controlled by a few exceedingly powerful men. Parts of that machine carry mindless dross, while others do so much harm we are trying to keep them out of the hands of children. And the total amount of it seems endless.
I suspect that more and more New Zealanders see our broadcasters as safe havens, delivering familiar fare and, more importantly, bringing greater relevance with local programming. Almost half of the NZ on Air/Varian survey sample had recently watched a New Zealand-made show. Unsurprisingly, the ratio was even higher among people aged over 60. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed thought local quality was as good as overseas content and 71 per cent said that content made them “a little prouder to be a New Zealander”.
Agreement levels in a series of six questions attested to the value of New Zealand content (and, hence, the attraction of our own services):
I like seeing NZ faces and places on shows 81%
NZ shows are for any age 62%
My friends and family watch NZ shows 60%
There is a wide variety of NZ shows 55%
NZ shows reflect me, my life, and my friends 50%
Without NZ shows I would feel disconnected 41%
Such results suggest that there is not only a place for local platforms in the video mix but that our own providers may have a point of difference that could allow them to rise even further above the rest.
They must be mindful, however, that downward trends by subscription platforms will lead inevitably to change. That may see some of them withdrawing from a small market of little consequence to their global masters. Others may band together to offer more attractive packages. Either way, the fragmentation will be diminished.
And the day is fast approaching when our own broadcasters must charge for their video on demand offering. Will they be able to sustain a place as first among equals?
I suggest our broadcasters dust off the records of radio after deregulation and look for parallels to ensure they are not among the consumed. George Santayana’s aphorism should already be ringing in their ears: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,”
For radio, the reverse, I believe, is simultaneously true. Streaming services now have as many listeners as radio, and unless major changes are made, the gap will widen – and not in radio’s favour.
There needs to be a deconsolidation of radio, back to stations in each major city, and maybe even sizeable towns, with hosts you’re likely to bump into at the shops, who know what it’s like to live where you live and can talk intelligently about it.