Radio History

I always find the history of radio in New Zealand very interesting but also VERY confusing prior to the 90s or 00s anyway. I just can’t wrap my head around how the government stations were originally set up and then some of them were commercial it seems? It seemed to be very different to how radio evolved in Australia with commercial stations in the very early years.

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Indeed… we had to even go pirate…

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It was a very different path to that taken by Australia.

It was sort of modeled on the U.K. where as you know there was no commercial/independent radio until the early 1970s

In NZ however there was an acceptance that commercial radio was needed but the government still wanted to keep its hand in. As a result RNZ (and its predecessor organisations) had 2 distinct arms; public service and commercial. At the same time, in the 1970s a limited number of private stations were licensed, including Radio Windy in Wellington. There were also pirate stations which had been around since the 60s which were eventually legalized, Hauraki being the most famous.

The commercial arm was sold off to The Radio Network (now NZME) in the 90s after many years of being run and acting as defacto commercial operations.

I think the timeline is right… please correct me if I’ve got any of this wrong,

Interesring side bar, the NZ government attitude to broadcasting prior to 80s was consistent with NZ politics to that point. Everything was highly regulated including things like which models of car could be imported and sold. This was all dismantled under the government of David Lange and the introduction of Rogernomics.

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Excellent to read @KnowItAll.

Many in early adulthood today would be surprised at the level of restrictive regulation if they’ve not studied modern history or economics

For a small country, NZ has had quite the trailblazers in finance from the 19th century to today.

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3TR in the Gippsland region targeted a young audience when it was on AM & continued to do so when it moved to the FM band in 2002, with the AM station becoming 3GV (now Gold 1242). 3GG was similar before Sea FM (later Star FM, now Hit) started that same year.

4AK in the Darling Downs is probably the last remaining commercial AM station to target a young audience.

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Yes I think 4AK would be the last commercial AM station to target a younger audience, albeit they are on FM in Stanthorpe I think.

There is a true youth targeting community AM station though - Brisbane Youth Radio 1197AM. Up until the late 2000s I think it still had the dance music youth format as Switch 1197.

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Here are 2 ads for Hobart’s Heart 107.3 from 2008 now Triple M Hobart

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Yeah I just checked 4ak, they have Kyle and Jackie O on there. Still 80s to today that’s over 30 years. Wonder what the play logs are like if they mainly play new stuff. They don’t seem to stream online my radio app is playing up and tunein has a message they don’t stream.

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I will throw a curly one out there. HOT 100 Darwin still has an AM Translator in Katherine on 765AM

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Nah… all these FM stations rolling out Rocktober promos are try hard wanna bes… the original and best Rocktober was from 2SM ( and probably 3XY and 4IP)

Of course things changed in the 80s and 2SM never recovered from the arrival of FM

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NZ stations also picked up Rocktober in the 70s, among them Radio Windy in Wellington and Hauraki in Auckland

Good one. I wonder why on am? Guess you found the only contemporary am station in Australia.:wink:

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As I understand it was the original translator for 1242 8DN (before its licence was revoked).

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Yes, as the owners of 8DN also owned HOT 100, which was against the rules at the time when they could only have 1 station in any market.

I would have thought in the longer term, converting 765 to FM would have saved money… as I always thought AM sites were more expensive to maintain than FM. And it’s not like there’s a scarcity of FM frequencies in a remote centre like Katherine.

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Apparently Hot made arrangements to sell 8DN… but the deal involved Hot giving the new owner a big loan to complete the sale and the regulatory authority at the time (It must have been the ABA or ABT) ruled Hot would still have had undue influence over 8DN and declined to approve the sale.

As I understand it all of this happened only a relatively short period of time before the law was changed to allow 2 licenses per market.

As for the Katherine translator, I’m guessing since it was already there on AM there was no real incentive to spend the money upgrading it to FM. AM transmitters may cost more to maintain but the cap ex to convert would have been significant; new transmitter, new tower, new links.

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How powerful would the Katherine transmitter be? Since AM signals can travel further, maybe it was advantageous to keep 785?

I think it’s only 500 watts

This John Farnham concert was simulcast on MMM 105. I assume it was recorded in Sydney on 7. Memories. Wonder when the last time triple m Sydney played a John Farnham song.

Triple M in Brisbane was 104?

Triple M did not exist in Melbourne, wikipedia says it was late Nov it became Triple M.

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I think it was only last year that Triple M Sydney played “You’re The Voice”. It was part of a countdown of some sort. I think I posted about that at the time.

B105 in Brisbane back in 1997 I think simulcast a John Farnham concert that may have been at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre. Was on 7 and B105.

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