At the time very much a soft AC… both Wellington and Christchurch - ‘Not too heavy, not too soft’. While 91.8 was very much a hot AC/CHR.
Very low-budget, though a novel little station and providing something quite different - FOX and then later ‘the Heat’, no announcers just a whole heap of American sweepers and voice-tracks (which at the time sounded pretty cool - pre-internet) and notably, rather than running any IRN, like most stations of a similar ilk at the time, they would run a sting at the top of the hour ‘No news is good news’.
That’s right - I was able to listen to More FM Auckland on TV4 in 1997 afterhours and holy crap what a completely different playlist; much better than the boring Wgtn one. I used to stay home on Saturday nights to listen (on TV4) to their Saturday Night Party Show. Yet Wgtn would be playing the same tired 15 songs again (quite like ZM, just older ones).
I do remember Fox FM, I think it had a fairly weak signal though, I know it wasn’t too powerful as I was staying in the south of the city (near Kilbirnie) and it was quite static-y. I also remember The Heat - did that start in 1994? Later it became The Box and finally 92 Hitz FM. All were good stations that gave ZM a bit of a run for their money playlist-wise…until the former ran out of money and eventually became Channel Z.
Radio related - this guy is still showing as doing a night show on Mai on the new Rova site, but I found a post from his (now-deactivated) Instagram saying he was moving to a “new opportunity” - was that the Niu breakfast show producer role? Who does nights on Mai then?
For the record, I feel it is fully justified that he lost his job - no one should threaten other people just because of the lifestyle they choose; how did the book reading at the library affect this guy personally? It didn’t.
I saw somewhere that it looks like Peter Williams may have left “Reality Check” “Radio” (lol). What happened there? I thought he was one of their more vocal supporters - especially making that grifting fundraising video when they had to stop streaming last year. It seemed like he would be there a long time, but looking at their site, his last show seems to have been sometime in 2024.
Big loss to the industry. What’s he off to do now? Maybe he’ll do a podcast?
Also listening to Channel X this morning I see they’ve started playing ads - only 2 per break but good start to make a bit of money. Maybe they saw my idea earlier in this thread?
It’s like Q97 in Whakatane where commercial advertising is limited to maximum of 60 seconds per break, i.e. 2 x 30 second ads in a single break.
@nztv Robert Scott has left The Breeze. I understand that Sarah van der Kley has returned to her former role as host of The Breeze’s daytime slot (10am-3pm) with Mike Puru moving to drive (3-7pm). Adam Percival (ex-More FM) is the new breakfast host but only for those which do not have local breakfast shows.
They’ve been slowly introducing them over the last couple of months. I imagine it’s a test for Mediaworks to see how much they can squeeze out of a station which doesn’t really generate much money for them.
Have any of their music brands actually taken that much of a hit since X launched, or is it mostly just tapping into an audience that was never keen on traditional radio anyway?
They’ve played ads for quite a while now in the metro markets. Maybe 6 months after they launched - well at least in Wellington and Auckland.
Seems to be their experimental station - they were the first to use radiotext for ads as well. Since then every now and then I see the ‘NOVAS glass - show us your crack!’ pop up on George and Mai (and probably other MW stations too).
Probably not too much of an audience.
In any case, I don’t mind hearing ads on Channel X - as long as they’re not too frequent (or too many per break). Coast got it right when they started with 2 ads pre break but I don’t know how many they play now.
As to this Canadian far-right(?) billionaire maybe buying up NZME - yikes
