2020 has been an interesting year for the marketing and media industry
I think it is fair to say that Covid-19 threw the marketing and media industry a bit of a curve ball this year. With some mediums like outdoor, losing its ultimate selling point of audiences and traffic, other mediums thrived. These were our local and international news sites. Because we can all agree that we wanted to be kept up to date with the virus that was ripping its way through the world.
Another medium that did quite well through the lockdowns was TV. A medium that although is still one of the highest reaching platforms in NZ, it has continued to struggle year on year in the dominant digital age with declining ratings and audiences. Within the TV space the key programme that has really thrived because of the pandemic is One News at 6pm on TVNZ1.
The numbers
When we look at the numbers, One News has won every night in 2020 so far on a ratings basis against its main competitor Newshub in the same timeslot, against the common TV trading demo AP 25-54. The last time Newshub rated higher than One News was on 28th September 2019.
Although both 6pm news programmes saw a significant lift in ratings during the NZ lockdown period, it was One News that dominated the ratings over their competitor. They have continued to largely hold on to the growth when we returned back to level 2 and 1 restrictions. When the Auckland level 3 lockdown and level 2.5 restrictions came back another lift was seen.
When we compare One News YOY to date, we have seen that the 2020 ratings since the Covid-19 Pandemic hit NZ are higher than in 2019. This means the average TARP for the 6pm bulletin is up 39% in 2020.
The icing on the cake
Recently on September 1st, NZ on Air released their 2020 addition of their “Where are the audiences research”. In this, further validation was given to TVNZ and their news plate with TVNZ News updates (online and broadcast) being the most widely used at 47%, and most trusted at 28% during Covid-19.
The question will remain on how long One News will remain in growth? Unfortunately for us from a personal perspective, if we continue to see spikes in One News ratings then it is likely that we have or will experience spikes in Covid-19 cases respectively.
Source:
TV Map AP 25-54, Jan19- Sep20, One News & Newshub daily ratings
NZ On Air, Where Are The Audiences? 2020
