PartnersDecember 27, 2020

Edge of the dial: The best local radio stations for an Aotearoa road trip

Staff Writer

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 towns off the beaten track, and meeting people you wouldn’t get a chance to otherwise.

But all of that requires you to get out of the car sometimes, and the downside of a road trip is that you spend a lot of time gripping the steering wheel. It can get boring without something good to listen to.

So when you’re experiencing so much new stuff, why listen to whatever you’d have on at home? The same podcasts and Spotify playlists will still be there when you get back. Perhaps it’s time to turn the old fashioned radio on and start flipping through the dials.

Over the course of the election campaign, I was out on the road in a Jucy van, which had a very good quality radio on it. And it was an absolute joy to find new stations along the way, and dip into the communities that produce them.

So here’s a non-exhaustive list of some of the local and independent stations I came across, and how to pick them up. And the point is to showcase stations that have sounds you might not hear elsewhere – you can get More FM pretty much anywhere in the country, if that’s your jam. But apart from internet streams (which many stations now have) these ones are best picked up over the hour you’re driving through one of the many beautiful parts of the country.

Arrow FM 92.7FM – South Wairarapa

A truly eclectic community access station that has great crisp sound across the Wairarapa region. I turned it on in the evening and heard about stockcar racing, then turned it on again the next morning and heard about organic farming and the maramataka. In between there was a selection of thoughtful pop music, with a heavy emphasis on local artists.

Paekākāriki FM – 88.2FM in the town of Paekākāriki and not far beyond that

If you’re driving down the Kāpiti Coast and getting tired of it all, pull in to Paekākāriki, a charming seaside village populated by chilled out locals, retirees and artsy hippies. That’s exactly what the station sounds like too, with a huge array of residents putting together shows, including kids at the local school.

1XX – Whakatāne and Eastern BOP on 90.5FM

There’s a reason why 1XX keeps on winning radio awards for non-surveyed markets (outside the major centres.) It’s an almost perfect local station, keeping right on top of everything that is happening around the region. At the top of each hour, short nationwide bulletins are followed up by much longer regional bulletins. The events guides are essential for anyone coming to town, and in a telling detail, the ad-breaks are packed with Whakatāne businesses wanting to reach their community.

Ake – Auckland on 1179am

Without doubt, one of the best music selections in the country. Ake, owned by iwi Ngāti Whātua, play the perfect mix of old disco bangers, R&B, and tunes in te reo which lean heavily on reggae. And it’s just music as well – song after song after song hitting the right spot. The only exceptions are the oddly tuned station jingle, and occasional pre-recorded voice breaks that tell some of the stories of the rohe.

Radioactive – Wellington on 88.6FM

If you’ve passed through Wellington at any stage of the last two decades and turned on Active, there’s a reasonable chance the station will sound pretty similar today. Fortunately, they hit a sweet spot in the groove around then and have just kept hammering away at it.

Honourable mention: Active is part of a wider network of stations with various degrees of connection to student communities, including Radio One in Dunedin, RDU in Christchurch, bFM in Auckland, and Radio Control in Palmerston North. They’re all pretty good.

Alex’s Jucy van parked on its lonesome, West Coast (Photo: Alex Braae)

Galaxy FM – Kawerau on 107FM

A community radio station in Kawerau that has a weirdly international footprint. Galaxy plays a lot of rock and country, and has some reasonably big names in that space recording stings on their behalf.

Free FM – Hamilton on 89FM

Hamilton’s main community radio station has a very different sound depending on when you tune in. Much of the day leans towards talk and discussion, particularly conversations around communities that aren’t well served by traditional media. And then in the evening, there are some excellent specialist music shows – like Bluegrass, Garage Punk, Island Reggae, and whatever the hell the show The Outer Limit Frequency feels like highlighting – a recent episode focused on sludge metal.

Brian FM – across the upper South Island but especially around Blenheim

The music selection on Brian is fairly down the line – they play a lot of classic rock of the last five decades or so, spanning from the likes of Fleetwood Mac up to the Foo Fighters. You can get that sort of music at a lot of stations, or even on a Spotify playlist. What you really listen to Brian for is the station stings – weird, pithy, self-deprecating, sometimes pretty borderline bad-taste jokes, but always an entertaining way of breaking up the music.

Hokonui – across the rural lower South Island on a range of frequencies, and also weirdly Taranaki

A slightly cheeky entry on this list, because it’s part of the major label NZME stable. But it’s also arguably the only unashamedly rural radio network in the country, and so you’ll definitely hear perspectives that you might not otherwise get. A lot of country music, with more talk based shows at peak times around breakfast, midday and the afternoon drive.

Central FM – Waipukurau and the Central Hawke’s Bay on 105.2FM

One of several stations around the country that is sort of both inside and outside the NZME stable. Perfectly easy listening, with good local news.

Trunk FM – Taumarunui and the King Country on 88FM

They play “the music you remember and more”, and it seems like the name of this station is a bid of a nod to the glory days of Taumarunui, when trains on the main trunk line stopped regularly. Most of the music does fall into that oldies and classic rock format, but if you tune in around breakfast on weekdays, or on Sunday morning, you’ll hear some hearty local shows with an ear out to what’s going on around the region.

87.7 – Waimate

I haven’t got a clue what this station is, but I only found it around Waimate in South Canterbury on a low power frequency. It plays a mix of country, oldies and easy listening, and feels deeply appropriate when you’re cruising around a historic town with a high proportion of retirees.

Tahu FM – across the South Island on a range of frequencies

One of the absolute slickest breakfast shows in the business, and excellent for practising your te reo – host slips in and out of two languages throughout it but it’s generally totally understandable for even the most monolingual among us. In terms of music, there’s lots of reggae but a bit of pop as well.

Te Hiku – Far North and Kaitaia on 97.1.

A major reason for the existence of Te Hiku is cultural revitalisation and te reo Māori, and they do an excellent job of that. Quite possibly the best station in the country to hear not only te reo tunes, but also interviews between fluent hosts and guests. Not being able to speak the language myself, I’m taking the word of others on this, but I’m told that the interviews are searching and insightful.

Tracks – Christchurch on 96.1

Listening to Tracks isn’t so much about the music, which at the moment is focused on modern country music. In fact, Tracks itself probably won’t exist in 2021. The point of listening to 96.1 in Christchurch is to hear the broadcasters of tomorrow cutting their teeth live on air. The frequency is the domain of the NZ Broadcasting School, and each year they come up with a new format to test their students with.

But the best advice of all: Just start turning the dial

Keep your eyes on the road, of course, or get someone in the passenger seat to do this. But one of the best ways to find music and stations you didn’t realise you’d like is to spin the wheel and see what happens. It might be in a language you’re not familiar with, or playing music from someone else’s culture. But that’s what a road trip of discovery is all about.

Keep going!

“I’ve travelled a really long way to find out New Zealand is the best place to be” (Image: Tina Tiller)

PartnersDecember 22, 2020

‘You notice what makes New Zealand special’: Coming home in 2020

Simon Day

Contributing Writer

“I’ve travelled a really long way to find out New Zealand is the best place to be” (Image: Tina Tiller)

Simon Day spoke to Charlotte Ward, chief people officer at Kiwibank, about what it was like to return to Aotearoa in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Charlotte Ward has constantly been on the move. Now, she’s found her way home and doesn’t plan on going anywhere any time soon. The newly appointed chief people officer at Kiwibank was born in Taupō, before her family moved to Chile for five years. She studied in Wellington, and has spent the last 15 years living overseas.

With a masters in organisational psychology, she’s held high-profile roles shaping the people and culture in large global organisations like BP and AIA. Now she’s part of the contingent of New Zealanders who have returned home over the past nine months. The Spinoff spoke to her about what’s changed in New Zealand, why she’s so excited to be home, and the opportunities she’s found in Aotearoa that hadn’t existed before.

Thousands of highly skilled New Zealanders are returning from overseas as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. But why did they leave in the first place? Listen to episode one of Coming Home now.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you usually listen to podcasts. New episodes arriving weekly, brought to you by The Spinoff and Kiwibank.

When did you get home?

I left Melbourne at the start of July. I started my new role in September. I was lucky to leave Melbourne before they started those intense lockdowns. We did quarantine with three small children, then I wanted a bit of time to settle back in before starting the new role.

What was managed isolation like?

We were put somewhere, then my second child had a cough so we got packed up in PPE and taken to Jet Park. It was at the time when everyone in New Zealand who had Covid was in there. It felt quite intense and like we weren’t quite in New Zealand yet. It was this kind of middle place, in limbo.

But it was amazing how much effort everyone was putting into it. I think that is such a New Zealand thing, everyone was in it together. We knew it had to be done so we got through it together.

My son had his eighth birthday there, and they knew he loved Roald Dahl so they put on a special movie for him and gave him popcorn and we had socially distanced seating. It was amazing.

What were you doing before you came home?

In Melbourne I was working at AIA as the chief people officer. Before that I was in London for a really long time. I knew I wanted to come back to New Zealand. By that stage I had three kids – I came back here for maternity leave for my last child. We have a place in Mt Maunganui and we realised that we love New Zealand, and we wanted to come back.

But it was quite hard at the time to find jobs here. I ended up through connections deciding to move to Melbourne. It felt like this was as close as I could get. From Coming Home I see that other people had some similar experiences. When you’ve been overseas and done quite specialist roles in really big companies, it was hard to find a place back in New Zealand. So that’s why I ended up living in Melbourne.

Why do you think the opportunities you had around the world didn’t exist in New Zealand?

In my case, because I studied psychology I ended up quite specialised in organisational psychology doing leadership assessment and development. Because the companies are so big, you end up very specialised and doing lots of interesting global work. You can have a job just doing leadership assessment. It’s different because the size of the companies is so different. It’s apples and oranges in terms of the type of work you end up doing.

Charlotte Ward had not lived and worked in New Zealand since 2006 (Photo: supplied)

Why was Kiwibank an organisation that was able to draw you home?

I feel so lucky that when I was thinking about coming home this opportunity came up. One thing I knew after working in global organisations was that I wanted to work for a company that was really Kiwi. I wanted to bring all these experiences I had working in different places into one and do something for New Zealand. So Kiwibank was perfect. I think Kiwibank has a unique opportunity and potential and I really connected with that.

With any big organisation here, we’ve got this responsibility to be developing people in the company for New Zealand. Everybody who comes and has a great work experience and builds skills and expertise here will either stay or be released back into the community with some awesome skills and this will collectively help what we talk about as New Zealand Inc.

We are building the skills, capability and expertise of New Zealand through the work that we do, as well as our customers through financial literacy and wellbeing.

We’ve always had great vibes associated with New Zealand. When you handover your Kiwi passport you’re welcomed with such warmth. But now there’s a whole new perception of New Zealand as world class. Does it feel different coming home to that new New Zealand?

Yeah it does feel different. I haven’t lived and worked here since 2006. You notice what it is that makes New Zealand special.

In terms of New Zealand’s change since I’ve last lived here, I think te reo Māori is a really good example. I definitely recognise that I’ve got a lot to catch up on. I think the whole of New Zealand has made a big journey together, to say “yes, we are celebrating our identity and who we are”. I love that and it is different to when I left.

Compared to some of the other countries that I lived in, sometimes I get surprised and delighted by some of the differences. One of the things I’ve noticed recently is the collectivism around wanting to support each other and help each other out. That is something that has assisted in our response to Covid-19.

As I go around and rebuild my network, what I am really noticing is people from other companies or other parts of New Zealand will say to me – “oh you’re new, you’re back, how can I help you, let me tell you about my journey and share what we did right and what we did wrong”. It’s just an amazing sense of generosity and sense of spirit that I didn’t experience living in Australia or the UK. I think it makes us special and different.

In New Zealand we have a chance to think about workplace culture in the way we make space and opportunities for Māori and for a diversity of people to flourish.

One of the ways I like to think about inclusion and diversity is that it’s all about making people feel like they belong. In New Zealand we are on a good path, we’ve made great strides but we’ve still got a lot of work to do. Places like Kiwibank have a big part to play in that.

One of the things we did recently that really resonated was translating our values into te reo Māori. When I was in Hastings, which probably has our largest proportion of Māori staff, they were saying “this is great, this really resonates, and I love the way Kiwibank is approaching this in an authentic way”. That’s the commitment Kiwibank has, which, as someone coming back from overseas, feels different. This isn’t something that wouldn’t have happened in 2006.

That’s something the new New Zealand offers to people with a CV like yours. It will always be home, and now you’re seeing that home reflected in the places you work and the unique value of what New Zealand is incorporated into career paths. Culturally it’s a special place to have a job.

I’ve travelled a really long way to find out New Zealand is the best place to be. I see that every day. People keep asking me how I am, and I’m just delighted to be back. It’s been three months now so I probably need to stop doing that.

When I left to go overseas that’s just what everyone in New Zealand did. When I did my masters thesis, one of the things in there was about achievement drive, and a lot of the research shows that people with high achievement drive will tend to leave whatever place they’re from. I wonder now whether that is still true. It will be interesting to see the change. There are a lot more opportunities here now for people with a high achievement drive to do what they want from New Zealand as a base or within New Zealand.