TV ONE Dominates Ratings On Election Night

TV ONE Dominates Ratings On Election Night

Vote 2014 Ratings Wrap-up

TV ONE was New Zealand’s number one television choice for coverage of the 2014 General Election. The past week has proved a huge success with viewers, with impressive ratings for all ONE News programmes as well as record numbers of online streams.

John Gillespie, TVNZ’s Head of News and Current Affairs, says; “I’m so proud of what our team has achieved these past few weeks – from the ONE News bulletins to the Leaders Debates and our live Vote 2014 results show. Everyone has really put so much into our coverage, and as a result our journalism has led the way throughout the election period. Most importantly, our viewers have shown an incredible level of engagement, and not just in terms of ratings. The audience has participated in Facebook Q&A sessions with the leaders, completed Vote Compass and have sent us their feedback. That’s really gratifying and it’s proved a big success for us.”

On the night of the Election, 20 September, Vote 2014 on TV ONE attained a 35% share (AP5+) during its 7pm-12am time slot, with 493,000 viewers in total. This was a significant increase in numbers compared to the 2011 Election, and compared to Decision 2014 on TV3, which reached 269,000 viewers.

Vote 2014 was also live online at www.onenews.co.nz and reached an incredible 85,000 streams.

TV ONE provided comprehensive post-election coverage on the morning of Sunday 21 September. At 7.30am, Tagata Pasifika invited all winning Pacific MPs on the show, and attracted an average of 58,000 viewers aged 5+ - a 40% increase when compared with the four previous weeks.

Q+A had a two-hour special programme from 8.00am with a huge line-up of political leaders in the studio, and drew 54% more viewers aged 5+ when compared to previous weeks, with 169,000 watching in total.

Marae at 10.00am attracted 121,000 viewers in total with its two-hour special featuring all the winning Māori MPs. This was a massive increase of 84% compared to previous weeks.

Ahead of the election, the final Leaders Debate between John Key and David Cunliffe on Wednesday 17 September was watched by more than 600,000 viewers aged 5+.

Another major success for TVNZ this election period was Vote Compass, an innovative online tool surveying voters on a variety of policy issues. It was launched by ONE News on 17 August and added a fascinating layer of commentary and analysis. Vote Compass founder Clifton van der Linden, based at the University of Toronto, says New Zealand’s response rate is the highest they’ve seen per capita. With 332,754 respondents by the night of Friday 19 September it exceeded all expectations and showed New Zealanders were ready for new ways to engage with this election.

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