Yay, more of the same with irritating ads please!
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Thereās a story on the Herald this morning (paywalled) about how a number of AM stations will be going off the air soon, with the dismantling of the AM transmitters at Henderson. Apparently theyāre too old and will be replaced with one newer one - but it wonāt have capacity for everyone. So this means 531PI (as outlined above), BBC World and Gold Sport and Sport Nation (amongst others) will disappear from the airwaves for good as thereās no option to keep them going outside of streaming. 531PI has an FM reprieve though.
Having said that I donāt know many people who listen to Gold Sport, BBC World, etc on AM - how well do they rank in audience numbers?
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Pretty low, they were niche stations
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Cume figures in Survey 3, 2025:
| 1 | Mai FM | 227,100 |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Newstalk ZB | 222,700 |
| 3 | Breeze | 191,800 |
| 4 | More FM | 130,200 |
| 5 | Rock | 114,500 |
| 6 | Edge | 112,100 |
| 7 | ZM | 109,400 |
| 8 | The Hits | 101,000 |
| 9 | George FM | 91,400 |
| 10 | Flava | 79,100 |
| 11 | Coast | 74,900 |
| 12 | Magic | 72,900 |
| 13 | The Sound | 67,400 |
| 14 | Radio Hauraki | 60,500 |
| 15 | Channel X | 52,500 |
| 16 | Life FM | 47,300 |
| 17 | 95bFM | 39,100 |
| 18 | Humm FM | 28,600 |
| 19 | Tarana | 25,900 |
| 20 | iHeartCountry | 25,000 |
| 21 | BBC | 24,400 |
| 22 | Gold Sport | 7,100 |
| 23 | Rhema | 6,600 |
| 24 | Sport Nation | 4,500 |
| 25 | Sanctuary | 4,000 |
| 26 | Radio Waatea | 2,900 |
| 27 | Tainui Live | 2,700 |
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Sport Nation Auckland AM frequency is coming off air April 15th due to the old Henderson transmitter coming down.
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Youāve gotta wonder if this is the beginning of the end for Sport Nation.
At least the big (commercial) two can re-align their stations and needs, to come off radio transmission in the countryās biggest city seems sub-optimal.
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John Campbell makes a return to RNZ, this time co-hosting Morning Report with Ingrid Hipkiss.
Starts Monday.
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Gold Sport commentary of the Hurricanes v Blues game last night was odd - was at the Stadium with the kids but tuned in for a bit - normally Jason Pine, Ross Bond and Matt Buck sideline but they called this game out of Auckland from the studio instead with Malcolm Jordan and Ant Strachan. Great combo those two but first time Iāve heard commentary for a NZ game (overseas ones eg Aussie away games I understand doing from the studio of course) done this way. Hope its not a cost problem given the parlous state of sport radio here 
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Hope not as as I love sport radio and listen daily but aware Im one of a small tribe, but I think youre right- and I wont be surprised. Theres some big celebs and presumably salaries to match on Sport Nation so it must be hard financially with such low ratings. I guess the thing in its favour is the Entain/TAB connect, which sees value in having a radio arm. To be quite honest, if it all went arse up and fell over as Sport Nation, Id still be fine with keeping at least some sport radio alive by doing what BSport/LiveSPORT/TAB Trackside used to do which was 6 hours - a sport breaky show first up, then a few morning slots (was Richard Loe in those days for a sport show then a rural show) and then flick over to live racing from midday for the rest of the day. Id sooner have at least that, than nothing. The LiveSPORT Breakfast of Champions was excellent I thought, and Glen Larmers breakfast on Trackside was also superb, esp as it had slightly longer form interviews (like the Lavina Good and Dale Budge half hour on NRL on Thursdays) than the short segments over on Radio Sport. Trackside also had Nisbo and Mark Stafford on a Saturday morning too which I loved
Maybe it was due to Jason Pine been in Auckland for the Auckland FC game on Saturday.
Ah thatād be it
I think Iāve heard Ross Bond move from expert to lead a few times so he must have also been unavailable this week. I think Iāve heard them do it off tube once before for Wellington and that was a few years back as the game got shifted to a different time/day I think maybe during Covid.
I think they should probably do this.
Breakfast show then a mid morning show and then pump in Trackside or podcasts for the rest of the day.
Iām baffled as to why they keep trying to take on extra things like Supercars this weekend (even though it was off tube).
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No Wonder Sport Nationās shifting to Streaming and Online, which are More Recieveable than DAB+.
I remember the good old days of sporrts roundup especially in summer with cricket on when we were camping and had no tv i think these days we may not need a 24 he sport network
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Most of the AM stations in Auckland will be going off the air tomorrow due to the end-of-life for the Henderson mast transmitter.
BBC World Service (810AM) that has been on-air in Auckland for almost 35 years signs off at midnight tonight.
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I believe the ones that are surviving will also be off air for a period of time as fixes are carries out.
Story on RNZās website about the transmitter tower replacement this morning:
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Is ZM going for a ā91ZMā throwback branding exercise? The Wellington 90.9 channel has had some regular localised stings over the past week - āWellingtonās number one for hit music - 91ZMā. Itās always been known as 90.9FM in all prior branding, so wonder what the reasoning is. Rounding to the nearest whole number doesnāt really make sense for radio frequencies.
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They used to do this in the when the dial was less crowded (as listeners would find it on that area of the band) but kinda phased it out for exact frequencies in the late 2000s/early 2010s.
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Christchurch has had the same for the last few weeks as well. All other imaging/promos still using 91.3 ZM though.