Standard Media Index

New Zealand’s media agency market has recorded a positive start to the 2026/27 financial year by delivering its fifth consecutive month of growth in May, with ad revenues lifting 1.2% year-on-year to $93.4 million, the Guideline SMI data shows.

Key highlights

• Outdoor bookings jumped 6.8%.
• Digital ad spend grew 3.9% with the Streaming market again the key growth engine (+29% YOY) while Social Media ad spend grew 4.2%.
• Radio grew ad revenues 10.5%, largely due to a 9.2% YOY jump in National Radio.
• Linear TV spend fell 9.2% as Free-to-Air slipped 10.5% and Pay TV was down 1.3%.
• Magazine ad spend fell 30.0% YOY and Newspapers were back 10.7%.
• Cinema was down 41.4%.

Product categories

• From a product category perspective, the strongest gain was in the Government category (+33%) as it continues to build ahead of the national election.
• Ad demand also strengthened in the Home Furnishing & Appliances category (+69%) and Media (+73%).
• But there was lower spend from the Retail (-19%), Cosmetics (-22%) and Banking (-13%) categories.

Calendar year to date

For the CYTD ad spend is up 2.0% to $436.4 million on the back of stronger Digital (+3.3%), Outdoor (+6.3%) and Radio (+7.1%) sectors.