Newstalk ZB soars in radio survey, dominates Auckland

Mike Hosking, host of Mike Hosking Breakfast on Newstalk ZB.

Newstalk ZB has soared in the latest GfK Commercial Radio Survey results, cementing its long-held position as the country's number one station.

The station has grown its overall share of the market to 10.5 per cent nationally and 12.5 per cent in Auckland.

The Mike Hosking Breakfast Show had 345,300 cumulative listeners (aged 10 and above) in the survey compared to The AM Show's 145,500 over the same time period.

As well as ZB's success, its sister NZME station Radio Sport now has a larger share of the Auckland market than Newshub's Radio Live.

NZME managing editor Shayne Currie said Newstalk ZB continues to deliver and has been number one since 2003.

"We've had a huge survey, reflecting a busy news period, in which our broadcasters and journalists have covered major events with vigour and verve, and broken many agenda-setting stories," Currie said.

ZB's cumulative audience rose to hit a record 510,400 listeners.

Currie says Newstalk ZB's digital audience was also very strong.

"The Newstalk ZB Facebook page now reaches more than 2.8 million people each month, and more than 2.4 million people are reached on the Mike Hosking Breakfast Facebook page each month," he said.

NZME head of talk Jason Winstanley said he was particularly pleased with ZB's "continued dominance in Auckland".

"We have the best on air talent in the business and these numbers reflect this. More New Zealanders are listening to the Mike Hosking Breakfast than ever before and it continues to set the daily agenda. I'm also pleased that we now have the number one and number two talk stations in Auckland with Radio Sport moving ahead of Radio Live," he said.

NZME's radio brands - which include ZM, Coast, and The Hits - and its partners grew its reach by 23,500 listeners in the latest survey.

"Together with our radio partners, we have over two million listeners. This equates to almost 60 per cent of all radio listeners," NZME's acting chief commercial officer Matt Headland said.

"NZME's share of listeners is up 4.2 percentage points across the first three surveys of this year," he said.

In the battle of the music stations it was a good survey for hip-hop focused brands with both Flava and Mai FM gaining listeners.

Coast took the mantle of the number one music station in Auckland and despite losing in excess of 21,000 listeners this survey The Edge retained its status as the station with the most listeners nationwide.

NZME's broadcast, publishing and digital channels - which include The New Zealand Herald and nzherald.co.nz - reach more than 3.3 million people.