Less than a decade ago, Māni Dunlop was censured by RNZ for using Auckland’s Māori name on air. Today, she’s leading the public broadcaster’s coverage of Waitangi Day as its Māori news director. She talks to Michelle Langstone about how she got there. Māni Dunlop sweeps round the corner of the recording studios in Radio … Read more
In the wake of the latest round of flagrant racism, some believe it’s time the format was completely written off. Alex Braae argues that talkback has so much more to give than audiences are currently getting. If you think talkback radio in New Zealand is only ever an unremitting stream of bigotry and outrage, you’ve … Read more
It’s easy to sacrifice John Banks. It’s a lot harder for brands, sports organisations and government to truly stop funding racism. Are they willing to try? Yesterday John Banks, the former Auckland mayor and MP, became subject to one of the fastest firings in media history when audio covering his approving response to a racist … Read more
John Banks’ racist exchange with a Magic Talk listener on Tuesday was the latest in nearly 50 years of talkback scandals involving the hosts of radio talkback shows. Donna Chisholm has the receipts. John Banks axed over Māori ‘stone age culture’ comments on Magic Talk 1972: On Radio I, sports talkback host Tim Bickerstaff launches … Read more
The Spinoff and Jucy sent Alex Braae on a long odyssey around the country during the election campaign. Here are his picks for the local radio stations that were most surprising and impressive. A road trip is all about seeing the bits in the middle that you miss when you travel airport to airport. Visiting … Read more
Noel Edmonds is a British TV legend with a 50 year career in broadcasting. So why did he move to Matakana and launch a radio station? Like an over-excited Mr Blobby, Tara Ward gave him a call to find out. When Noel Edmonds answers the phone from his home north of Auckland, he’s multitasking like … Read more
As New Zealand adjusts to our new normal, one thing from the old world remains – commercial breakfast radio. We tuned into the first morning of lockdown on the airwaves. In a time when the world seems completely upside-down, you can thankfully still count on commercial breakfast radio to be there for you, bright and … Read more
The Spinoff editor Toby Manhire joins Duncan Greive to discuss the RNZ Concert saga, the potential merger with TVNZ and Winston Peters’ new photography hobby on this month’s episode of The Fold. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, RSS or via your favourite podcast provider.
The controversy over the fate of RNZ Concert, and the proposed youth music network to replace it, have sucked up a lot of attention this week. But the idea the government might foot the bill for a new youth brand haven’t gone down well with iwi stations suffering from years of underfunding, writes Alice Webb-Lidall. … Read more
Where do we watch content, what do we want from it, and how do we view New Zealand news? Here’s what we learned from NZ On Air’s latest survey on identity, culture and the media. We still like to watch free-to-view TV Despite the lingering doom and gloom around linear television, almost three-quarters of respondents … Read more
The ancient Australian shock-jock yesterday targeted Jacinda Ardern, urging Australia’s PM to ‘shove a sock down her throat’. It’s all in keeping with a substantial history of being an arse. The plucky nation of Australia excels in a range of endeavours, but nowhere more than the angry, anguished howls of bloated, Jurassic men. It’s a … Read more
This week the Auckland radio station 95bFM celebrates its 50th anniversary. Russell Brown looks back at the station’s history, the hurdles it’s overcome, and why it thrived. To understand what 95bFM is celebrating this week, it’s useful to look at what New Zealand was like in 1969 when a group of University of Auckland students … Read more
In a paper published today in the New Zealand Medical Journal, a University of Canterbury study has found that vocal fry is voluntary and is becoming common in some young New Zealand women. Fried things are delicious. But apparently fried lady voices are not. The study that’s causing such a fuss today isn’t talking about … Read more
Leonie Hayden went in search of the people behind community access radio station Planet FM, and their newly minted and very silly Twitter account. She discovered a group of people who love their jobs and the communities they help. Community access radio station Planet FM gives good content. If you had any investment in this … Read more
James Meharry, station director of RDU98.5FM and chair of the Student Radio Network, on how student radio is not just surviving – it’s thriving. It’s interesting how good old-fashioned vinyl records have been undergoing a resurgence over the past decade. The volumes of new sales simply don’t compare to other physical formats like CDs or the blossoming of … Read more
It’s New Zealand Music Month, an event started in part to encourage local radio to play local music. Did it work? Is it still working? We assigned Gareth Shute to take a sample of the most popular stations to find out. The battle to get homegrown music on local radio goes back a long way, … Read more
‘Be kind to animals,’ Gwen Shepherd instructed an avid listening audience when her wedding was broadcast in 1930, as told in an extract from a new book by Peter Hoar. Gwen Shepherd wore a gown of ivory georgette when she married Bruce Stennett at Wellington’s St Paul’s Pro-Cathedral, now known as Old St Paul’s, on Wednesday, … Read more
As we brace ourselves for more hyperbolic post-radio survey self-congratulations, Henry Oliver talks to MediaWorks’ Leon Wratt, who argues it’s time for the radio networks to end the arms race and start reporting on the results even-handedly – for the good of all radio. It’s almost that time of the year again – or, now, … Read more
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today: In celebration of Thane and Dunc’s anniversary party – held tonight at an Auckland strip club – Emily Writes reviews The Rock’s website. Because usually she loves The Rock. My husband has listened to The Rock for as long … Read more
Beloved breakfast radio host Simon Barnett has announced his departure from More FM, in only 545 days. But that number will almost certainly become smaller with the passing of every day. Please bookmark this page for the very latest. The news arrived by media release. There is no getting around it: Si is off. He is leaving More … Read more
Just over three years ago, Susie Ferguson began as co-host of NZ’s most important news programme, Morning Report. She joins Toby Manhire to discuss the show, her rapport with Guyon Espiner, sexist abuse from listeners, how she ended up in NZ, and a dramatic head knock at the hands of her toddler Even before an … Read more
Every time the radio survey results come out we get the same amazing news: everyone killed it! Duncan Greive reads the press releases and tries to figure out what’s really going on. EVERY NZME STATION INCREASES LISTENERS MEDIAWORKS RADIO REMAINS THE NUMBER ONE RADIO NETWORK IN NEW ZEALAND WITH ITS LARGEST EVER REACH Record Audiences … Read more
Seven years after he hung up his headphones at bFM, Mikey Havoc – musician, trouble maker, radio talent extraordinaire – is back at the station that made him. Ahead of his first Breakfast show on May 8th, Havoc sat down with his former producer José Barbosa to explain what lured him home. Mikey Havoc, the old … Read more
A range of viewpoints is a good thing. But giving a platform to noxious, hateful, racially inflammatory propaganda is quite another. So why is Newstalk ZB so keen on Katie Hopkins, asks Branko Marcetic. Few would accuse Newstalk ZB of being a fountainhead for enlightened ideas. This is, after all, the radio station that lets Mike Hosking … Read more
You can’t move for a symposium or petition bemoaning the state of current affairs on television today. Yet John Campbell’s Checkpoint is a throwback to exactly the kind of programming people say they want, writes Duncan Greive. Yesterday on Face TV, a channel I have never knowingly before watched, we got a glimpse into TV’s … Read more
Alex Casey looks at the best of the worst of John Key on the commercial radio circuit. Caution: contains entirely too much information. It’s hard to know at this point in time what we will miss the most about John Key. Will it be the time he said that gender quotas in Cabinet were stupid? … Read more
Tim Murphy analyses the latest GfK radio listenership figures and finds evidence that the NewstalkZB juggernaut is finally starting to slow. Radio ratings out today will have been a bittersweet dessert for the executives of MediaWorks as they launched their television new season at a lunch at the Northern Club. Sweet because their radio division … Read more
A celebrity interview can be a minefield, especially when it comes to the subjects deemed ‘off limits’ by publicists. Jesse Mulligan asked some fellow interviewers about the topics they were told never to bring up. In 1999, two years after the suicide death of lead singer Michael Hutchence, INXS announced an Australasian tour with 1970s … Read more
Soon-to-be-former Radio Hauraki DJ Alex Behan explains why everyone has been pronouncing the station’s name wrong for years – and why it needs to stop. UPDATE: The station appears to have indicated it will soon change its pronunciation. The first question I asked when I was offered a job at Radio Hauraki was “Am I allowed to … Read more