New Zealand got its first FM radio broadcast in 1983. The technology had been developed in New York in 1928, and used in the rest of the world since the 1930s.
New Zealanders were stuck with the crackly whirr of AM radio because successive Governments would not license FM. They included three Governments of the ‘free-enterprise’ National Party, ruling for 28 of those fifty-odd years. The 1983 broadcast was a trial in Whakatane, presumably they thought it a safe place to test new-fangled technology.
Through New Zealand’s ‘golden years’ of the fifties, sixties and seventies, broadcast media was a monopoly. There was one TV channel, a couple of choices of Government radio, and your local paper.
It was 1980s Broadcasting Minister, and friend of Free Press, Richard Prebble who deregulated broadcasting. Radio spectrum was auctioned off, giving us choice. Iwi got spectrum for the…
