Originated in Blenheim and its owner Andrew Jeffries lives there. Ironically spent a lot of his career programming ‘traditional stations’ in the UK and the USA for Iheart Media.
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Watching you tube last night and i stumbled across the duncan garner podcast where he interviewed simon barnett very moving and sad but brave as well wish simon and his family well after whst he has been through
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He seems like a solid guy. I remember when he ran Today FM, there was an earthquake or similar, I want to say during the summer holiday, and he was there producing emergency shows (and maybe presenting as well?). He seems that rare example of a media manager with a soul.
That would’ve been the Auckland floods. both Chris Reeder (CD) and Dallas were broadcasting rolling coverage through till early morning - then Cyclone Gabrielle hit a few days after.
It was a really great example of how immediate radio can be - bloody shame it ended weeks later
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Why was More so unpopular last year in Wellington? What did they prefer instead?
More has battled for Wellington in years despite being the market it was set up in - @HUFF will probably know the stats but it’s been a long time if they’re successful there.
It suffered for a while going against a ZM network show that was perceived as local (Polly and Grant).
It’s also a slightly odd market - RNZ National is very big there with public servants and the commercial ones don’t follow the order of elsewhere
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Fantastic to know, thanks @OnAir
Interesting about the persistent misconception of the ZM show.
Yes, did notice RNZ National and Concert were surprisingly on in shops when I visited last year. They’re good quality stations. Concert I heard a lot in many bookshops all over the country, more approachable presentation than ABC Classic.
Yes - I should probably clarify it did start as a local show but branched out to be network in the 2000s and retained a lot of the Wellington audience.
That Breeze studio in Timaru looks really nice - did they completely rip out the former Port setup and redo it entirely, or was it more of a spruce-up?
As to More FM Wgtn, I remember listening to it just after it launched when visiting in 1991. It played a very odd mix of music, I thought - although as a teenager at the time I was probably more interested in the Top 40 stuff…something I thought ZMFM did not do well until at least 1994.
Interestingly, I found all of the best new music on Aotearoa Radio.
re Polly and Grant, I remember their show on ZM rating its socks off in Wellington so TRN decided to expand it nationwide in 2001. I know it did okay in some other places, but nowhere near as good as in Wellington. I understood they did want to move on by the early 2010s though as they were nearing their 60s doing youth radio…which didn’t really work. I recall their time on The Hits started out okay but a fair number of listeners didn’t like losing their local breakfast show.
It was a pity they got the boot from More Wellington, I reckon they would have done quite well there (I must confess I never got to hear their show when they were doing it). From memory coronavirus bought an end to that - is that correct?
something I have been wondering lately … anyone know what Adam Percival is doing at Mediaworks now not on air (think he said that he would still fill in for Simon and be BTS… but in what role ?)
Yeah, they were certainly most popular in Wellington - they were hamstrung by sounding ‘old’ compared to The Edge at the time on a network level as I recall as the 2000s went on.
Their exit from ZM was overdue but also mismanaged - The Hits didn’t really fit them either when that brand (re)launched and the show was feeling a little tired (for example, it was trying to leverage celebrity interviews still when the cache in celebrity interviews had gone - with the accessibility of stars via social media themselves or in easily accessible interviews via YouTube). I’m not really sure what TRN (as it was) could have done as they desperately needed to rejuvenate ZM. Perhaps put Polly and Grant on Wellington ‘The Hits’ only, launched a new The Hits breakfast show for network…
Yep - then Polly went off to Today FM.
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You just triggered a memory! I remember when The Edge launched in Wgtn in March 2000 (I was living there at the time). Up until then, ZM had mostly had the youth market to themselves following the closure of The Box and the decline of Channel Z. Polly and Grant started their show at 6 - but The Edge started theirs at 5, from memory to cater to the Waikato farmers. ZM at that time was still playing their overnight show with the overnight announcer.
Suddenly about a month or so later, The Morning Crew started their show at 5 as well - maybe they could smell the competition in the air and decided they needed to move with the times?
In any case once The Edge arrived in Wellington I barely listened to ZM there again, ever - the music mix on The Edge was (back then) light years ahead of the tired, repetitive playlist that ZM Wgtn had been serving up for the last 3-4 years.
Ironically (before networking) I visited Auckland and found the ZM station there was far, far, far better than the Wellington one, with much better music variety. Made me wonder why Wellington didn’t follow in their footsteps! Of course a few years later it became a moot point when ZM Wgtn became mostly networked - one of the few times I would say that networking a station actually improved it.
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Going back to 2000, More’s peak was in S1/2002 with an 11.1 share, still only good enough for 4th behind ZM, Breeze and ZB at the time.
So far this decade, More’s done as well as a 5.9 (S4/2022). Currently, its 3.8 average for 2024 is on track to be its poorest annual performance since 2014 (2.7 average)… it was a pretty steep descent from 2010 (6.8 share) to 2014.
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I was doing a cleanout the other week and found a souvenir - a More FM flyer from one of my trips to Wellington, this one must have been in early or mid-1992. They must have been doing okay at the time going by this story, although I have no idea how surveys were done back then - probably using the diary?
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Yes, Research International was conducting two surveys per year in Wellington, however I’ve only been able to find a handful of them from prior to 2000. This tracks with what I’ve found: More signed on very strong, and remained #1 for several years in the early 90s.
(I should have noted in my earlier past that the 2002 peak was as far back as consistent data goes back.)
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Actually I think I may have my timing wrong - that flyer was probably from sometime in 1992. I’ve corrected the dates above.
I remember Swampy Marsh being a host then moving on to The Breeze (at the time I believe they were separate companies).
I did find a list of the hosts here:
Are any of them still in radio? I had correspondence with John Diver after he setup Channel Z but he moved to Australia (I think) and I lost contact with him.
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I also remember quite a few of the stations in Wellington around 1991-2-3 - Classic Hits (more like Magic would be today), ZM, 91.7 was something but I can’t remember what, Concert FM, ZM again, The Breeze, Kix FM (this was in 1994), Concert FM again, The Pirate, Atiawa Toa FM, The Quake, The Breeze again, then 99-100 More FM.
Coming from a small town in the South Island with one AM RNZ community station (and National Radio) this was almost like radio heaven 
Having said that, from April 1992 onwards though where I lived we were able to pick up Fifeshire FM from Nelson, and what an awesome station that was - opened my eyes to how good radio could really be! Memories… 
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Found this as well, which also lists their frequencies at the time (I think they’re all changed now):
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