Tag: NZ on Air

Broadcasters back on top in fragmented market

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. Continue reading “Broadcasters back on top in fragmented market” →

What do our early teens do in the digital shadows?

The parent of children entering their teens soon learn they are operating in an environment fraught with hidden dangers.

We can be reasonably certain teenagers do not turn into vampires, but what 12 to 14 year olds do in the digital shadows should be one of the hazards on parents’ danger lists.

Last week, funding agencies NZ on Air and Te Māngai Pāho released the results of research – undertaken by Verian on their behalf – that provides numerous insights into children’s media use. It is part of the ‘Where Are The Audiences?’ series of studies that provide broadcasters and content providers with invaluable information that can inform future inputs and outputs.

The research is based on insights from media diaries to capture children’s media use across a week, 20 two-hour in-home interviews in five centres across the country, and a quantitative survey of 1024 parents and their children. You can access the reports here.

Among the findings was a clear need to do more to attract early teens and their younger siblings to local content. They are more drawn to trendy offerings on international platforms, particularly YouTube.

As a result, NZ On Air has announced the launch of a new hub for local children’s content on YouTube and YouTube Kids called KIDOGO.

Content funded by both agencies can now be found on two YouTube channels aimed at distinct age ranges. KIDOGO Junior has content for pre-schoolers, while KIDOGO is aimed at primary-school kids. The channels provide an additional avenue for content discovery, complementing local platforms.

The logic appears to be that, if children are attracted to local content while at primary school, they will continue that interest into their teens and beyond. It is sound thinking.

The research also contains warning signs over unsupervised online activity as children get older and enter their teenage years. Continue reading “What do our early teens do in the digital shadows?” →

Radio and television will follow Marconi and Baird to the grave

This country needs to be at a watershed when NZ on Air asks Where are the audiences? in 2025.

The trends in its latest biennial report, released last week, suggest that by the time it next surveys New Zealand audiences we will have reached a point where traditional institutional concepts of media are no longer sustainable.

Between now and 2025 we need a fundamental rethink of media business models, organisation, and regulation. And the thinking will have to have been translated into action if we are to avoid systemic failures.

The Where are the audiences? survey has been monitoring media use since 2014, mapping trends that have seen the rise of competing digital services and the steady decline of traditional broadcasting. You can access the 2023 report here.

Along the way there have been numerous crossover points but the latest survey notes what may be the most significant crossover in the nine year history of the research. For the first time, broadcast television no longer commands the majority of viewers in prime time between 6 pm and 10.30 pm. Also for the first time, New Zealanders overall are spending more time using digital media than traditional media. Continue reading “Radio and television will follow Marconi and Baird to the grave” →

Back to the future to train the next generation of journalists

There was a back-to-the-future aura around a full page advertisement in the Otago Daily Times last week. “Want to be a journalist?” it asked. “We’ll help you get there!”

The advertisement stated the ODT’s owner, Allied Press, was looking for five cadets “who have what it takes to be journalists in their South Island home town in 2023”.

It signalled its return to the sort of in-house cadet scheme that was standard practice in New Zealand when I started my career in journalism in 1965. Continue reading “Back to the future to train the next generation of journalists” →