Let me say at the outset: I like NZME’s video breakfast show Herald Now.
It has the hallmarks of a serious news programme designed to inform me at the start of the day, and the relaxed manner of its host Ryan Bridge belies his skill in asking questions that put interviewees on the spot.
It has the ability to attract newsmakers from the Prime Minister and former judges to sports stars and social workers in Gaza. Its rotating list of panellists spans a useful social spectrum.
Ryan Bridge plays a key role in the show’s success but, even when he is not there, the format retains its appeal. Last week, seasoned television journalist Garth Bray (now with NZME’s BusinessDesk) was a quality stand-in who maintained the same pace and inquisitive style.
So, I was not surprised when NZME crowed that the show has attracted 2.4 million views in July. Well, that was the number from one survey source but it could include double-ups where the same people watched on different platforms. By another measure, the programme has a million ‘unique viewers’ a month.
Herald Now screens on the Herald’s digital platforms and on YouTube. I watch it through the latter on the tv set in our lounge. And that is what roused my curiosity over the audience statistic proudly announced by NZME. When I logged onto the programme on YouTube one day last week it told me there were 407 other viewers. On another day, the number was about 1400. That suggests that the vast majority view it on the Herald’s platforms.
Fair enough, but what does either Herald Now audience survey number actually tell us?
First, it is spread over a month. Second, we have no idea how long each of the counted audience members actually views the programme. And, thirdly, we need to look at viewing on the Herald platform in the context of other parts of its site.
Last July, the audience had 23 daily opportunities to watch Herald Now live. Watch on one of those days and you became part of that 2.4 million. The programme was onscreen for 2760 minutes in that month and watching for a minute or two would register. So, too, would watching one of the clips from the show that stayed on the Herald site. Compare the 2.4 million (or one million) views in a month to the Herald’s print and online readership which, according to the latest readership survey, showed the Herald’s average weekly audience is 2.39 million.
I’m not suggesting NZME is being misleading over the Herald Now audience. Rather, I am saying the number is meaningless without further explanation.
That explanation is all the more necessary given the fact that the programme has had technical issues, particularly over sound quality. On YouTube there have also been breaks in transmission. Both issues could lead to viewers losing patience and going elsewhere.
NZME’s chief executive, Michael Boggs, said during its recent half-year presentation to analysts and investors that Herald Now was, at least, breaking even. However, last week Newsroom’s Tim Murphy wrote that there had been speculation within NZME that the programme could be cut from two hours to one hour.
Murphy, my former colleague on the New Zealand Herald, is not given to reporting unfounded rumours and I am sure he had more than one source before repeating the speculation. Nonetheless, the report was emphatically denied by an NZME spokesperson.
The Newsroom report sounded to me like the first tweet of a canary in a coalmine. I hope the little bird is mistaken because Herald Now is a very useful addition to the news offering by NZME. As I’ve said previously in this commentary, it is superior to the chitty-chatty Breakfast on TVNZ.
Its basic problem (apart from annoying technical weaknesses) is one of access. I do not believe the show is well-promoted on Herald platforms, nor is its place on the Herald site given particular emphasis. However, the access problem is more fundamental: This is effectively breakfast television (best viewed over cornflakes) but it lacks the broadcast facility that would allow it to compete more directly with Breakfast. Without a broadcast outlet it lacks the sort of the brand identity Stuff has gained for its video content through its Three News rescue package on Three and the Three Now streaming service.
YouTube is a useful form of access, but it is indirect, and a service with which some potential viewers are less familiar. Live viewing on digital devices at that time of the day is likely to be short duration, rather than the destination viewing that advertisers prefer, and encourages the audience to do later pick-ups of individual news items on the Herald site.
Perhaps NZME could persuade Sky TV to lease out a 7am to 9am weekday slot on Sky Open, or enter into a joint venture. After all, Sky Open’s 6-8 am timeslot is usually an ‘infomercial’ dead zone. And it is available free-to-air via Freeview. Properly promoted, it could propel Herald Now beyond the point of speculation over cutbacks…and force TVNZ to up its game on Breakfast.
Audiences
It should be obvious by now that audience statistics interest me.
I continue to be annoyed that the most reliable of newspaper statistics – audited circulations – are no longer made public. The inexorable decline in such numbers was, no doubt, seen as counter-productive by the publishers. Look on the News Publishers’ Association website and all you will find is this:
“The Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) was dissolved late 2021 with the News Publishers’ Association continuing publication of newspaper circulation figures for participating publishers through to 2023. Due to the lack of participation, the NPA will not be publishing any further newspaper circulation figures, as it is no longer a fair representation of the sector.”
Circulation figures remain a very fair representation of the performance of individual titles. It is only when some opt out that fairness is lost.
However, not all is lost. We continue to have readership figures and the latest tranche has just been delivered by Nielsen. The value of this research lies in comparing change over time. Quarter-to-quarter numbers are less relevant (given seasonal reading patterns) than year-on-year comparisons.
The readership of all dailies in the country has dropped year-on-year from 982,000 to 973,000, according to the latest newspaper topline survey by Nielsen. That does not come as surprise. It is part of an ongoing trend. In 2015 almost a third of the population aged over 15 read a daily newspaper. Today that proportion stands at less than a quarter.
Nonetheless, four of the five metropolitan newspapers have gained readers since the same period last year. The sole exception is the New Zealand Herald.
The largest annual metro gain is by the Waikato Times, up 12,000 to 57,000 average issue readership. It is followed by the Otago Daily Times, which gained 11,000 readers to sit at 91,000. The Post gained 5000 and now has 116,000 readers while its stablemate The Press was up 3000 to 93,000.
The New Zealand Herald’s readership dropped by 17,000 but, at 504,000, it is still almost 30 per cent greater than the combined readership of the other metros. What must worry NZME, however, is that it is now reaching a smaller percentage of the 15-plus population than it did a year ago – 11.6 per cent versus 12.2 per cent. Its Stuff metropolitan rivals have either maintained their population proportion or exceeded it year-on-year.
That, perhaps, is why the Herald chose to publish multi-platform print and online numbers that showed a weekly reach of 2.39 million (an additional 139,000 year-on-year) while Stuff recorded the newspaper readership numbers.
The magazine market has also endured hard times – Readers Digest announced last month that it was discontinuing its New Zealand print edition – but for two local weekly magazines the Nielsen numbers must be heartening.
The New Zealand Woman’s Weekly has recorded an annual increase of 18,000 readers to stand at 431,000 while its rival Woman’s Day remains static on 342,000. The New Zealand Listener also rose year-on-year from 199,000 to 213,000. In contrast, its rival The TV Guide has bombed – shedding 23,000 readers to stand at 281,000.
Statistics will forever be sliced and diced to reflect the desire for light or gloom. Shayne Currie said in his Media Insider column in the NZ Herald on Saturday about the current crop of audience numbers: “Everyone’s a winner”. It all depends from which side of the cup you drink.