NZME's Newstalk ZB is the highest rating commercial radio station, with a line-up of hosts including Ryan Bridge, Mike Hosking and Heather du Plessis-Allan. Photo montage / Oliver Rusden
NZME's Newstalk ZB is the highest rating commercial radio station, with a line-up of hosts including Ryan Bridge, Mike Hosking and Heather du Plessis-Allan. Photo montage / Oliver Rusden
Newstalk ZB has finished the year as the country’s leading commercial radio station, for the 17th year in a row, while The Breeze is New Zealand’s top music station.
Both NZME and MediaWorks will take heart from the performance of several of their stations in the latest GFK radio ratings,released today.
NZME’s Newstalk ZB – led by breakfast host Mike Hosking - retains its number one position, with a share of 14.8 – down 0.1 on the previous survey. MediaWorks’ The Breeze retains second spot with a share of 9.5 (+0.2).
MediaWorks music stations (The Rock, More FM, Magic/Breeze Classic, Mai and The Sound) hold the next five positions, followed by NZME’s Coast, The Hits and ZM rounding out the top 10.
Coast – which has undergone a music review and overhaul in recent months – has had the biggest jump in national share, up 0.9 to a share of 5.4. The Magic/Breeze Classic also enjoyed a rise, up 0.4 points to a national share of 6.8.
Jason Reeves, Toni Street and Sam Wallace host the breakfast show on Coast. Photo / NZME
In a relatively stable market, NZME’s ZM (-0.6) and MediaWorks’ More FM (-0.4) recorded the two biggest falls.
Of much interest will be the progress of RNZ, whose own ratings are released separately from the commercial networks next week.
The Breeze's Auckland breakfast hosts Robert Rakete and Jeanette Thomas.
Cumulative audiences fell for almost every radio station nationally. ZB was the only station to maintain an audience above 600,000 – at 603,600, it was down 16,400 listeners. The Breeze has 547,900 listeners, down from 558,400.
Hosking has a national breakfast audience of 424,300 – back slightly from 433,400 in the previous survey. Second-place The Breeze has a national breakfast audience of 287,500, up from 272,200.
Matt Heath and Tyler Adams have made strong inroads, nationally and in Auckland.
One of the standout performers for ZB is its 12pm-4pm afternoon show. Hosts Matt Heath and Tyler Adams are up 2.6 points in Auckland, to a share of 10.9, and from third to second place. They are now nipping at the heels of The Breeze, which has stayed stable on a share of 11.7. Nationally, the pair rose 0.7 points.
Meanwhile, NZME’s newest station, iHeartCountry, has debuted with 40,200 weekly listeners in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
The Radio Bureau chief executive Alistair Jamison said: “Our linear audiences continue to show resilience and when combined with the incremental audiences that we know we are generating from our digital platforms, audio offers advertisers a powerful, cost-efficient audience on an ongoing basis.”
MediaWorks chief executive Wendy Palmer said audio continued to deliver strong results.
“Looking at annualised cumulative audiences across the three surveys in 2025, audio reached 3.410 million Kiwis on average each week this year.”
NZME chief executive Michael Boggs added: “2025 has been a strong year in terrestrial radio but also digital audio, with Infinite Dial showing the growing strength of local digital platforms. We’re particularly proud of iHeartRadio’s growth over the past two years. In 2025 we have seen ongoing investment and enhancement of both local platforms and as a result we expect to see digital audiences and advertiser support continuing to flourish in 2026.”
