29 November 2022
NZ On Air recently commissioned a two phase research study to develop an in-depth understanding of NZ youth audiences’ media behaviour, attitudes and content needs so as to better reach and engage New Zealand youth with local content.
Phase one consisted of qualitative research to understand how youth make decisions about what media content to engage with, what they are looking for in the content they engage with, and their perceptions of NZ content versus global content and providers.
Phase two consisted of a quantitative study, based on our Where Are The Audiences? ongoing study to measure current behaviour and the incidence and relative importance of the trends and themes identified in phase one.
Some of the key points of the research are:
- Each day less than one in three 15-24 year olds watch TV, local on demand sites or listen to the radio – media where they will have a better opportunity to engage with NZ content. Instead they are predominantly on social media, overseas online video sites, SVOD and playing online games.
- TVNZ platforms have the greatest reach of local platforms – together TVNZ 1 and 2 reach 21% of 15-24s and 18% view TVNZ +. Local online news sites have much lower reach with this age group – The NZ Herald has highest reach at 10%.
- Most engage with local shows or music several times a week, and feel more proud to be a Kiwi when they do.
- 8 in 10 enjoy seeing NZ places and faces on shows, but less than half agree NZ shows reflect them or their lives.
- Three-quarters say NZ music makes them a little more proud to be a NZer, but 7 in 10 also think international music is better.
- Their media choice is influenced by their perceptions of local providers being skewed to older audiences, and less positive perceptions of local content.
- They have negative pre-conceptions about local content – but when shown a range of local content they were impressed by the quality, range and relatability.
- Word of mouth, social media and streaming service algorithms are how they discover new shows – in music TikTok is third most used platform for discovery after streaming service algorithms and word of mouth.
Further information
**Our two research teams, Glasshouse and TRA, worked closely together on this project. Early learnings from the qualitative work informed some of the questions in the quantitative survey so that these observations could be tested out.
The full individual reports are available to download below.