Channel X proves people don’t want to hear news, sport, weather, or generally anything that reminds them of human existence in the last 20 years.
The last human sound to play on Today FM was a sob. Presenter Tova O’Brien had just accused her bosses of killing the station without ever giving it a chance. A sad heave was audible as the intro to ‘Young Blood’ by The Naked and Famous came on, its synths drowning out the tears.
The musical takeover was a harbinger of things to come. A few months later, Today FM was replaced by Channel X, a DJ-free zombie station devoted entirely to tracks from the late-90s to early-2000s, aka the Millennial-Gen X Nostalgia Zone. Its only voice breaks are ads, several of which seem to be unpaid musings from an unnamed MediaWorks employee. “Channel X does endorse Bluey this school holidays,” said one recent entry. “We do not endorse Ms Rachel.”
I accidentally found the station during one of my car radio’s periodic nervous breakdowns. It spun haphazardly through the wavelengths near the Greville Rd motorway off-ramp, eventually finding purchase on 106.2FM just as The Verve Pipe’s Brian Vander Ark started Creed-voicing angstily about stopping a baby’s breath and a shoe full of rice in 1996 hit ‘The Freshmen’.
Replacing a well-funded talk radio brand with a literal playlist is the kind of thing a media company does when it’s slowly shrivelling into oblivion. But since that moment by the Albany poo ponds, Channel X has been one of my go-tos. Indications are I’m not alone. One of Channel X’s latest ads calls it “New Zealand’s fastest-growing radio station”. In the second commercial radio ratings survey for 2024, it registered a 4.8% audience share in the 18-34 age bracket, and 4.3% in the 25-54 demographic. Today FM only registered a 1.4% overall market share in 2023.
An informal survey of The Spinoff’s predominantly Millennial and Xennial workforce would suggest those numbers are continuing to grow. Several staff members have admitted to being Channel Xers. “It’s replaced Radio NZ in my car,” said one high-ranking Spinoffer. “Sorry.”
No need to apologise. I don’t listen to RNZ either, and most especially not that putrid show Mediawatch. I’m too busy vibing to ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ by Savage Garden on Onewa Rd.
It’s hard to say why. Channel X really has no right working as well as it does. Every streaming service on Earth offers basically the exact same product. If I want to listen to late-90s to early-2000s hits all I have to do is fire up The Cranberries or The Killers radio on Spotify.
But there’s something joyless in these services’ ruthless hyper-targeting of revealed preference. Ironically, MediaWorks’ most human-free station is more listenable because it still retains a trace of humanity. It works because it sometimes doesn’t work. There are curveballs, duds, and most importantly, surprises. You might have to sit through a violent bout of Avicii, but it’s worth it to spontaneously revisit a song you’ve barely thought about since the ride to your sixth form ball.
The model appears to be catching on. Last month, Channel X’s rival NZME station Gold FM dropped its presenters to become music-only. The trend will likely accelerate as cash-strapped media companies look for ways to reduce overheads on pointless things like “paying to keep human beings alive”. Channel X may be the first horseman of the radio apocalypse, its pitiless scythe sweeping down upon Jono and Ben, Matty McLean, fill-in drive host Matilda Green, Clint and Bree, and in a great blackening final blow that portends the end of all things, Simon Barnett.
But for now, it’s a refreshing break from the modern world; a Millennial nirvana where our aging brains can once more approximate that peerless feeling of hearing a great song you don’t have on CD crackling down the radio waves. This isn’t Coast FM or the Breeze, where the need for audience growth has resulted in horrendous decade-mixing mashups of Third Eye Blind and Rod Stewart. The year is specifically 1998, and you’re in your mum’s car listening to ZM. Soon you’ll snap out of the nostalgic daze. But when that music is playing, no one can hear you sob.
