Every two years we commission research to explore how our stakeholders are feeling about our work and our interactions with them. We use this research to listen to the sector, and to find areas for improvement, or acknowledgement of what’s working well.
The 2024 wave of the research (undertaken in early 2025 ) has highlighted what an incredibly difficult time it is for so many in the sector. Against a backdrop of 78% of stakeholders feeling increasingly pessimistic about the future, there are a number of pointers we have taken from this research.
Some key takeouts and action points are outlined below.
- Staff interactions foster positive perceptions: Staff remain the "backbone driver of advocacy" with stakeholders consistently rating NZ On Air staff highly for being courteous (94%), helpful (90%), responsive (83%), and well-informed (80%).
- Trust and Effective Communication: 68% of stakeholders trust NZ On Air and 80% rate its communications as effective.
- Clear Funding Criteria and Application Process: Most stakeholders who applied for funding understood the funding criteria (88%) and understood what was required when applying (99%), entering into a contract (93%), and delivering the project (98%). This clarity is crucial for maintaining effective operations.
Action points
- Transparency in Decision-Making: While understanding of funding criteria is high there's an opportunity to enhance transparency regarding the decision-making process, with only 59% finding it easy to understand how the decision-making process works. This gap affects advocacy and satisfaction. There are also requests for more feedback on (unsuccessful) applications.
- New resources on our website provide detail on our funding evaluation and decision-making processes.
- Data we gather internally that shows how and where funds have been distributed will now be published after each round to enhance transparency.
- Improve Funding Criteria Understanding
- Funding criteria are vital to ensuring we are able to compare apples with apples, and ensure applications reach a certain bar. Criteria, for whatever type of funding application, are clearly set out and published on our website. However we are constantly reviewing guidance documents to ensure they use Plain Language to ensure they are easily understood.
- Improve perceptions of funding choices
- Stakeholders have mixed views about whether NZ On Air funds the right things. Stakeholders who are not satisfied with what NZ On Air is currently funding want to see more funding of NZ focused talent, support for smaller less established players and funding for a more diverse range of projects.
- The split views on this have been a recurring theme over the years. We think we can increase understanding of the mix of funding choices by publishing more data about where the funding is going (as above.)
- Research and leadership value
- The perceived value of NZ On Air's research and leadership, and policy input has softened, which Verian believes may be a reflection of the sector instability. However there are also calls for more research on content opportunities.
- Since 2022 we have been expanding our Where Are The Audiences methodology to include rich qualitative observations about content needs. The 2022 Youth research and 2024 Māori audiences research are examples of these, and our current Children’s Media Use research is also taking this approach. We will continue to expand this body of work year on year.
- We also have access to audience data across all platforms for funded content and draw rich information from this on what is succeeding with NZ audiences. We are looking at ways to share more of this information without breaching confidentiality/commercial sensitivity.
- Enhance International Exposure
- The top request for new initiatives is to "push international exposure" (11%), particularly strong among Music applicants (38%). Exploring international pathways could help address sector pessimism by opening new opportunities.
- We will continue to support screen content makers in discussions they are having with international finance partners and partner in initiatives such as the Activator programme.