Paul Hickey from The Hits is celebrating a rise in listeners.
NZME radio stations continue to be the most popular among Rotorua listeners, according to the latest GfK NZ Commercial Radio Ratings Survey.
NZME's Flava breakfast show came out as Rotorua's favourite and had the largest amount of listeners all day. Coast, ZB and The Hits also gained a new stringof listeners from Rotorua.
Paul Hickey's local 9am-3pm day show on The Hits saw growth in both in its share of listeners and time listening.
People of all ages were tuning in, with the growth centred in listeners between 25 and 54 years old.
Hickey said it was really nice to read these figures as they reinforced the positive comments he received on the streets and from the community.
He said it really reflected all the hard work that the whole team had put in to make a positive mark on the local community.
NZME's general manager in Bay of Plenty Greg Murphy said it was positive to see more people listening to their shows and more importantly, their local announcers.
Paul Hickey from The Hits is celebrating a rise in listeners. Photo / Ben Fraser
He said Hickey had become a household name from all his hard work in the community and that was why every survey he came out with excellent results.
Hickey was connected with his local market and always chose to be at every event he could, even if it had nothing to do with his job, simply because he loved what he did.
On a national scale, NZME's Newstalk ZB grew its dominance of the commercial radio networks, with multi-award-winning hosts Mike Hosking and Marcus Lush streets well ahead of their competition.
Newstalk ZB was number one in its Early Edition, Breakfast, Drive, Nights, Overnights and Weekends across New Zealand.
On the music scene, ZM's breakfast hosts Fletch, Vaughan and Megan topped the charts and took away the title of number one breakfast show for 18 to 34-year-old Kiwis.
The show managed to attract more than 20,000 new listeners in three months.
The NZME network saw "super-charged growth in 25-54 audiences nationwide", with every NZME station growing in popularity with these listeners, said NZME's head of commercial Matt Headland.
NZME chief executive Michael Boggs attributed the radio audience growth to a relentless focus on having the best hosts on the right brands building meaningful and lasting connections with listeners.
Bogg said the station had put so many new shows in place with hosts like Kerre McIvor and Heather du Plessis Allan, Simon Barnett and Phil Gifford and that their hard work was being recognised by the listeners.
He said nearly 3.4 million New Zealanders listened to commercial radio each week and they were listening on average for 17 hours a week.
NZME's streaming service iHeart Radio was also doing exceptionally well, boasting just over 878,000 registered users and clocking up 3.4 million listening hours in May.
Source: GfK Radio Audience Measurement. Commercial Radio Stations. Rotorua S2/2019 (NB: Waikato S3/2017).
