1987: Newstalk 1ZB

April 9, 2021

By AHNZ

In 1987 the Government commercial radio station of Auckland, 1ZB, was in crisis. Even though over 2/3 of its work was supplied and funded by Radio New Zealand, 1ZB was sliding down the ratings. They were being beaten by non-government radio that not only was not massively subsidised but actually had to pay taxes for the work it did.

In an effort to reverse the slide, 1ZB re-branded on 16 March, 1987. Leighton Smith had recently been imported from Australia, and Paul Homes was already on the government payroll so was re-deployed to Auckland. The new brand was called ‘Newstalk 1ZB’.

Radio Pacific¹ was loving it, ZB’s loss was their gain by default. Likewise, Radio I, was forging ahead of ZB by casting Merv Smith and Alice Worsley in the same time slots they had recently vacated from ZB’s line up. The Government’s men, P Homes and L Smith, had to battle to lift their team back up again.

 “..all sorts of things that crept in that I really didn’t like, like the way they commercials into a programme. In which manner they were absolutely right but I objected to. I didn’t want to do it any other way than I’d already done it…and they also changed the music. It was getting worse and worse in my opinion and it didn’t match with me…I like to think that I’m loyal to my friends and ZB at that point had a penchant for mucking people about really badly. One of my friends left for Radio I…so I told him to tell them I was in the market…”
“It was as if the world fell down, nobody had the least idea I was likely to do so. Meanwhile I went to Radio i…my best years.” – Merv Smith, Radio NZ Interview (2013)

“..a serious miscalculation of the impact of the format change, intensified by the hidden costs of being a stand-alone station, rather than remaining under the umbrella of the old Radio New Zealand district system…Prior to the change, fewer than one-third of the people required to operate 1ZB were actually on the station’s payroll, but now it was an autonomous business unit..” – ZB: The Voice of an Iconic Radio Station, Bill Francis (2006)

“The change of format on 1ZB, from an ‘all things to all people’ radio station to a talk station named Newstalk 1ZB, is now well documented and saw the good work almost annihilated.”

“After Holmes arrived and we went down in the tubes into single figures, I didn’t like the way things were going. I didn’t like the Holmes style..”- Beyond the Microphone, Leighton Smith (2013)

1ZB Finally stopped bleeding the taxpayer money that was propping it up after 2 years. Running on anti-competitive Government power kept them in the game where free people would have no such lifeline. When it was 64 years old Newstalk ZB entered the decade of the 1990s on top once again.

Later, in 1996, Newstalk ZB was privatised by National 4.0 but as you can hear on this clip from The Radio Vault they were, in 1994, still able to simply cut’n paste their news bulletins from Radio New Zealand. Eventually the regional content around New Zealand was subsumed into Auckland’s 1ZB and everyone was listening to their line-up except for Wellington and Christchurch which still enjoy their own local broadcasters for the time being.

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1 Radio Pacific became Radio Live (2005) which is now called Magic Talk (2018)

Image ref. Paul Homes, TVNZ; Re: News, Youtube

Note: ZB started as 1ZB on 9 August 1926 and will turned 95 in 2021

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