No more Today FM TOTH been played at 6pm.
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Its not even on rova anymore
Sad day for the staff but guess it was inevitable once their manager left
Still available on TuneIn:
(must admit Iâm listening on 702AM though - loving the music! Heard a few songs I havenât heard for a while! Maybe they should roll out this format instead?)
Whatâs going to happen to the news for all the Mediaworks stations tomorrow? I heard Geoff Bryan âfrom the Today FM Newsroomâ - whoâs going to do the news for The Breeze and The Sound from tomorrow? The Mediaworks News Centre?
Today FM reminded me a lot of MTR and how tough it was going to be for it to become a viable player. Didnât expect though that it would end just as abruptly as MTR did:
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Very sorry about the news today Rorie, really enjoyed the product that Today FM offered and the team who put it all together. Gutted you didnât get the time many of you were probably promised by management.
The landscape is not well served by having only ZB as the talk option.
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What a day in NZ radio.
We lost a station that was the âalternativeâ Newstalk ZB. From RadioLive in 05â, Magic Talk in 19â and Today FM in 22â. We signal that it might be the end of talkback radio across Mediaworks unless what will happen replacing with a new station in a few weeks time.
It must be really tough to hear the shocking announcement with Tovaâs sombering voice and the sadden staff members in the studio with a little bit of time and playing music afterwards, then end the station abruptly.
I really feel for the entire whanau of Today FM presenters and including producers who bring the shows live across the nation.
@theGradyConnell and @Rorie (producers for the station), we really feel you after today and we wish the best for you in the future.
In the meantime, keep moving forward and we wish the entire Today FM crew the best of luck and thanks for your contribution and support across the year.
Arohanui. 
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For heavenâs sake, donât go on the Reddit thread about Today FM, whatever you do. Full of really nasty comments about the station and Tova. Seemingly the commentators there still hold a grudge against her for the way she asked Jacinda some questions 3 years ago. 
That subreddit is a nightmare - if you dare question a decision of a left wing party youâre seemingly a right wing nutjob.
They - along with the fringe elements of both wings - donât seem respect actual journalism.
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It is just a toxic circlejerk. Used to be all right but I think COVID did a number on it. Do you remember when âShut up, Tovaâ was a meme on there for months? One person even did a cross-stitch of it (to much praise, naturally). They were jerking themselves silly over The Opportunities Party for months, and Labour were the devils incarnate. Then all of a sudden Labour went back to being saints. But anyway, Iâm going WAY off topic now.
Back to Today FM and MediaWorks, and Duncan Grieve wrote a really interesting piece suggesting that MW may not be too long for this world:
We donât need another music station, thatâs for sure.
Stuffâs obtained the document that led to the closure of the station. Looks like theyâre cutting a lot of the personalities too.
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I donât have a massive understanding of the NZ radio market, but would a rolling news station work?
Thereâs several dotted around the major U.S. cities. We have LBC News here in the UK too.
Today FM frequently advertised with âNews every 20 minutesâ, Ă la WINS in NYC. By that margin, you could consider it more of a rolling news station with elements of talkback rather than the straight talkback of something like ZB.
I mean, TVNZ tried a rolling news channel with 7 and look how far that got them. Thereâs a clear market for it, it just needs to be able to attract advertisers, which Today FM wasnât doing.
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That leaked document would indicate frequencies whether it be all or just some will be handed over to existing music brands. What ones are left over could be used to launch a mostly announcer free music station somewhat along the lines of the old Mix 98.2 that NZME had.
Not sure that would work, if it was attempted it would need to be RNZ or NZME who could utilise existing news gathering and technical resources to make it cheaper to run.
I reckon thatâs the format they should have gone with to begin with. It would have at least been different to other market offerings.
Alternatively, the third format of Radio City Talk might work? Extended news bulletins every 20 minutes with music in between, along with a small number of longer form talk programmes.
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I dunno whether it was everyone at Today seeing the writing on the wall but I thought it kinda came into its own the last week or so covering the Posie Parker visit. Smalleyâs cracker editorials saying let her speak with Tova taking the direct opposite position and Garner seemed to have given up playing that weird everyman Danny Watson style of talkback⊠back to what youâd expect from him, calling Marama Davidson a disgrace for her âcis white menâ comments etc . I thought a lot of the time it felt too restricted. Too afraid of upsetting a listener or an advertiser so they deliberately went middle of the road which was a bit bland at times.
Sad day though. Undeniably a lot of great talent there.
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Never forget when Winston Peters hung up on Tova in her radio show debut 
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The National government didnât continue itâs funding even though it was a paltry 15 million dollars a year to run TVNZ 7, and TVNZâs commercial side hated it, so you canât say it wasnât do able when it was, it just needed the govts commitment.
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I think tova summed it up when she said they fâŠkd them over if you going to go out then go out with a bang was not a listener but a shame this has happened i wonder what they will use to replace them
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