Coast the top radio station in Tauranga

Brian Kelly's Breakfast show as the most listened to Local Music Breakfast show, according to the recent 2018 GfK commercial radio survey. Photo / John Borren.

NZME is performing well in Tauranga according to the recent 2018 GfK commercial radio survey, with Coast the most listened to station.

ZM has also had a strong performance. The station has the most listeners, and bookends the day with Fletch, Vaughan & Megan's Breakfast show having the most listeners at Breakfast (weekdays 6-10am), while Bree & Clint's Drive show have the most listeners at Drive (weekdays 4-7pm).

The Mike Hosking Breakfast on Newstalk ZB is the most listened to Breakfast show (weekdays 6-8.30am). Newstalk ZB and Radio Sport are the No 1 News and Sport stations respectively.

Coast, Radio Sport and ZM have all increased their market share, and Coast and Radio Hauraki have more listeners.

Greg Murphy, General Manager – Bay of Plenty, says he is proud of Tauranga's recent survey results.

"Coast has had an incredible run. It's fantastic to see Brian Kelly's Breakfast show as the most listened to local music breakfast show, and the station takes out not only the most listened to station but the top station for workdays.

"It also increased market share and grew its audience; The whole Bay of Plenty team have done an outstanding job. Tauranga is such a tight-knit community, it's no surprise the local show continues to have strong engagement."

From a national perspective, iHeartRadio continues to add breadth to NZME's advertising offering and delivered 22 per cent growth year on year with more than 800,000 registered users and an average of 2.9 million listening hours (up 20 per cent year on year) each month.

Commercial radio has again proven it remains highly relevant as a medium, with 3.4 million commercial radio listeners tuning in which equates to 80 per cent of New Zealand's population.

During the period, NZME and partners gained 30,200 listeners, with MediaWorks going backwards by 32,300 listeners.

Newstalk ZB continued its dominance retaining its number one station overall across New Zealand, along with the Mike Hosking Breakfast Show being No 1 again nationally.

NZME managing editor Shayne Currie said ZB's extraordinary success was a further example of how NZME's integrated newsrooms were paying dividends.

This was further recognised on Friday, when the New Zealand Herald won best daily news brand in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.

"Newstalk ZB, the Herald, Radio Sport and our five regional daily newspapers are a force for good in news and sport. We're continually thinking about our audiences and delivering to them the very best stories and content."

NZME's group director entertainment, Dean Buchanan says the NZME music brands results are strong, with ZM, Coast, Mix and Flava deserving special mentions.

"ZM is now NZME's biggest station with 516,300 listeners, which is exciting as listeners are truly embracing the changes we've made in recent years. Other highlights include Coast, which increased listeners by more than 19,000 and retained its status as New Zealand's No 1 music station (all people 35 plus)*, Mix gained almost 18,000 listeners while Flava continues to ride the urban music high gaining more than 5000 more listeners."