Hrm. That’s odd. I heard that, according to its website, ZFM is described as ‘Auckland’s hit music station’ and avoids confusion with ZM which, as a nationwide radio brand, is run by NZME.
OJ was elected to the Timaru District Council. It’s re-election time, so is probably reducing the chances of being seen to have an advantage (by having a media presence).
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So will gold stay on i heart radio as a streaming music station only
That is my understanding.
Ok better than nothing
Is zfm trying to mirror rovas xfm ??
ZFM, pronounced ‘Zee ef em’ has been around as a single bloke operation since 2010. I think the last time he refreshed the music was in 2023.
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Im guessing it will be modern country, not George Jones, Jim Reeves, Faron Young, Lynn Anderson, etc.
Thats the aim i believe i think they are cashing in on the sold out luke coombs concerts recently and seeing a market for it
As it says in this article, “The new station will feature an extensive playlist of hits from global country music superstars including Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson, Keith Urban, Dasha, Kane Brown, Megan Moroney and Jason Aldean, alongside homegrown New Zealand talent such as Kaylee Bell.”
Even Classic Country stations in the US have by and large moved on from George Jones, Faron Young, Jim Reeves, etc. “Classic Country” is now 90s based… Garth, Brooks & Dunn, Reba, etc.
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Which is a pity.
Still not my thing, I’m listening to Gold as much as I can to make the best of it, otherwise once this new country thing comes in (will it have any announcers? Or just country music and ads?) I’ll be deleting the FM frequency for Gold on my radio.
Will leave the AM one there though, at least that will still play music.
No announcers on IHCRNZ, nor any ads (to begin with).
Sounds like a country version of Channel X 
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The new iHeartCountry station will be ad-free, but only for 10,000 songs played.
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I really think these sorts of stations are the way that things will do in the future., and if there are "DJ"s they will be AI powered.
They’ve updated the Gold website to take away references to “Gold FM.” Is Gold still playing as normal on their frequencies, or is there any advisories telling listeners that the station is changing?
The iHeartRadio stream for IHCNZ is playing a loop teasing the new station - sort of how channelX started. There also exists IHC Australia and a US station as well that play with hosts so it’ll be interesting to see if they pave the way for those stations to go 24/7 music only, or if they’ll bring hosts and interviews to IHCNZ.
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: Gold FM now stunting country music (as of 8:00pm NZT).
I know it seems early but looks like IHeartCountry is here.
EDIT (8:10pm): IHCNZ stream is now playing, replacing the loop.
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Yeehaa!
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