How Kiwis Spend Their Downtime Now – Streaming, Swiping and Logging On
What does a Friday night look like in Auckland or Wellington these days? For more and more Kiwis, it’s not about heading out somewhere. It’s a screen of some description, be that the household TV or a phone propped on a pillow.
Digital entertainment in New Zealand has gone from a backup option to the default. TVNZ+ alone had 2.17 million viewers across the first half of 2025, with 205 million minutes of content weekly. Statista’s 2025 forecast put TV and video market revenue at US$1.29 billion.
And streaming is only one facet of this shift. Mobile gaming and online entertainment have both shot up in NZ over the last two years, even catching the industry off guard at times.
Read on for a look at what’s changed, why, and where it’s headed.
Interactive Platforms and the Online Casino Trend
Not all online entertainment for Kiwis is passive consumption.
A growing proportion of digital leisure in New Zealand is on platforms where the user is actually doing something – placing a bet on an offshore casino site, playing a competitive mobile game, that kind of thing. New Zealand’s government plans to introduce an online casino licensing regime by 2026, with 15 licences available through auction. Until then, offshore operators are the only option.
That offshore-only setup comes with its challenges, though. How do you work out which operators are worth trusting when regulation varies wildly and bonus wagering terms aren’t the same? This is where comparison platforms come in handy. Trusted casino sites reviewed on Casino.com New Zealand compare operators on criteria like game selection, withdrawal methods, bonus terms and safety.
Whether the 2026 licensing change changes this space remains to be seen, but for now, these review platforms are the best tool.
Streaming Took Over Faster Than Expected
Traditional TV broadcasting revenue in New Zealand dropped by 5.7% per year between 2020 and 2025.
Sure, Sky and TVNZ are still the big players, but they’ve lost big chunks of their audiences to Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and free-to-air streaming apps (of which TVNZ has one, to be fair).
Chorus announced in mid-2025 that it would be boosting wholesale fibre broadband speeds for 700,000+ homes. This upgrade has a knock-on effect – fewer buffering issues, and fewer reasons to hang onto a Sky subscription.
Prime Video also brought in add-on subscriptions and a new in-app store for Kiwis, meaning third-party channels could be bundled without leaving the app. This model of having one interface that controls access to multiple content libraries is becoming normal.
Mobile Gaming Isn’t Just For Gamers Now
New Zealand’s mobile games market was valued at roughly US$107 million in 2024. Statista reckons that climbs to US$142 million by 2029, with user penetration crossing 30%. Globally the industry is worth over US$100 billion, by the way.
Wellington-based Dinosaur Polo Club, the studio behind Mini Motorways, is one of the better-known local developers. NZ On Air’s Game Development Sector Rebate – established through Budget 2023 – appointed former DPC chief executive Chantelle Cole as Programme Director in early 2024. Public money going into this sector’s development is a sign of where priorities are.
Longer commutes in post-lockdown Auckland and Wellington mean more time to kill on buses. People who wouldn’t call themselves gamers are clocking 20 minutes a day on puzzle apps – and probably don’t think of it as gaming either.
Digital Leisure on the Move
Travel patterns have changed things too.
International trips by Kiwis picked up sharply from late 2023, and digital entertainment is always a feature during layovers, and long-haul flights. Netflix’s offline download feature probably did more for in-flight entertainment than any airline’s own system.
SpaceX’s Starlink, available in rural New Zealand since mid-2021, has closed the gap for those outside the main centres. According to the U.S. International Trade Administration’s commercial guide for New Zealand, faster rural broadband access has directly boosted demand for online entertainment across the country.
Where To From Here
Statista’s SVoD forecast for New Zealand projects US$319 million by 2027, up from US$240 million in 2024. A CAGR of roughly 10% doesn’t sound dramatic until you add gaming revenue on top – that’s on course for over US$1 billion by 2029.
Infrastructure investment tells the same story.
Google’s Honomoana undersea cable, due to connect New Zealand with the US, Australia, and French Polynesia by 2026, should increase bandwidth capacity further. New Zealand’s ICT sector was valued at US$19.8 billion in 2024. Nobody talks about undersea cables at barbecues, but they’re the reason this all works.
