The case for our taxpayer-funded national radio network to appeal to a wider audience – Vaughn Davis

Vaughn Davis says RNZ must evolve to serve all Kiwis – not just liberal, urban listeners. Photo / AFP

THE FACTS

• RNZ National’s radio audience has fallen to its lowest number in more than five years, according to figures released in May.
• GFK data showed RNZ had a cumulative audience of 467,700 – down 21,900, or 4.5%, since November 2024.
• RNZ, which once led the market, was eighth based on cumulative audience.

I learned something about RNZ the other night that could have saved a lot of time and effort in audience surveys.

The bloke on the street isn’t listening to them. Worse than that, this particular bloke on that particular street hasn’t even heard of them.

As it happened, I was out for a drink that night with a radio host. I’ve known them for a while; I’ve even popped up on their show a few times over the years giving expert reckonings on everything from advertising to aviation.

We were sitting outside, so when my old mate Keith and his partner walked past, they spotted us and invited themselves to sit down.

Keith’s an interesting guy. As well as an importing business that seems to run itself, he installs pool fences.

Now, you might think this is a bit niche, but he’s gotten very good at it, so he and his crews have become a go-to business when someone is installing a new pool or getting one refenced. He’s busy, he employs people and he pays a bunch of tax.

I thought he might recognise the radio host I was having a beer with, so was a bit light on the introductions, which led Keith to ask what he did for a living.

“I work in radio,” came the modest answer.

“Oh, that’s interesting,” Keith and his partner replied.

“What station?”

“RNZ.”

I looked at Keith, hoping to read on his face that my being out for a drink with a high-profile host from our national broadcaster reflected pretty well on my own personal coolness. Not a bit.

Keith, it turns out, hadn’t heard of RNZ, even when it was spelled out for him. He’d heard of the BBC, though, so when the idea of a state radio broadcaster was explained he got the idea.

In a lot of ways, Keith is like me. Mid-50s, Pākehā business owner living in Auckland, likes to go out for a drink on Karangahape Rd. Like mine, his business pays plenty of tax and a chunk of that presumably makes its way to fund RNZ. Unlike me, he doesn’t get anything back for it.

RNZ is trusted, relevant and popular with people like me. People who live in nice-but-not-too-nice suburbs (okay, I’ll say it: Point Chevalier). People with a liberal world view and probably a university education. People who are into Teslas, Te Radar and Te Reo.

But what about the rest of New Zealand? What about Keith?

Why should being a bit blue collar, a bit right of centre, a bit rugby, racing and beer mean he misses out?

Of course, Keith isn’t missing out on radio entirely. He’s part of its large and surprisingly growing audience across almost every minute of his working day. He listens to Hauraki. He listens to The Breeze. And like an enormous and growing number of New Zealanders, he listens to Newstalk ZB. He’s not tuning in to RNZ, though, because it’s not for him – even if he’d heard of it.

Which is fine, except Keith, like every other taxpayer, is paying for it.

He deserves something back. Somewhere among the stuff that people like me love, among the interviews with novelists, the theatre reviews, the politics and science podcasts, the repurposed BBC shows, the media analysis and wall to wall Womad weekends, he deserves something that he and his crew can listen to when they’re stuck in traffic on their way to installing pool fences in suburbs that are hardly ever Point Chevalier.