Also known as: Kiwi FM (from February 2005)
Frequency: 99.3FM
Coverage: Christchurch (local programming 1999–2001), then national simulcast from Auckland
Format: Alternative rock / New Zealand music
Network: Channel Z / CanWest Global Radio / RadioWorks
Founded: August 1999
Active: 1999–2005 (as Channel Z); 2005–2015 (as Kiwi FM)
History
Channel Z arrived in Christchurch in August 1999 on 99.3FM, bringing its commitment to alternative rock and New Zealand music to a city that had limited alternatives on the mainstream FM dial. The station had launched in Wellington in August 1996 — named after the B-52s song of the same name — and expanded to Auckland in 1997, before adding Christchurch as its third market.
The Christchurch launch was marked by a concert featuring four of the era’s most talked-about acts: Stellar*, The Living End (from Australia), Zed, and Tadpole. It was a lineup that captured what Channel Z stood for — New Zealand talent alongside international acts that fitted the alternative-rock mould. Zed had come straight out of Cashmere High School in Christchurch; the bill gave the station an immediate connection with its new city.
Christchurch had its own distinct on-air identity in those early years. Willy Macalister hosted the local daytime show, while Melanie Wise held the night-time slot. The networked morning and drive shows came from the national feed, but the station’s local windows gave Christchurch listeners a genuine point of difference from what they heard on More FM or ZM. Channel Z was not quite student radio — it was properly resourced and commercially oriented — but it occupied a middle ground that felt genuinely alternative rather than just marketing itself as such.
Behind the scenes, the station’s ownership sat within the More FM Group, under the control of Canadian broadcaster CanWest through its New Zealand subsidiary Global Radio. A format shift in 1999 prompted resignations from Channel Z’s Wellington operation, including founding programme director John Diver — an early signal of the tension between the station’s alternative identity and its corporate context. The same year, in Wellington, Jemaine Clement was coming in weekly to write advertisements for the network, with Bret McKenzie providing voiceovers. Clement won a New Zealand Radio Award in 1999 for a Channel Z ad called Trashed, and a Special Commendation in 2000 for The Sunglass Store — early recognition for work that foreshadowed his later career with Flight of the Conchords.
By 2001, the era of local Christchurch programming was over. Channel Z consolidated its operations, abolishing local shows in both Christchurch and Wellington and running all content from Auckland. For Christchurch listeners, this meant losing Willy Macalister and Melanie Wise from the schedule. The decision was a commercial one — maintaining separate local operations across three cities was expensive — but it was widely felt as a loss. From 2001, 99.3FM carried the same networked product as the Auckland and Wellington frequencies, with Christchurch identity reduced to a frequency number on the dial.
On 6 February 2005 — Waitangi Day — Channel Z was replaced across all its frequencies by Kiwi FM, a new station dedicated exclusively to New Zealand music, launched with a speech by Prime Minister Helen Clark. The 99.3FM frequency in Christchurch became part of that network, which continued until MediaWorks shut Kiwi FM on 31 March 2015. In 2019, Southern Media relaunched the Channel Z name from Christchurch as an online alternative rock stream, continuing the station’s spirit in the city where it had once had its most distinct local voice.
We were like naughty little kids.
Channel Z staff, The Spinoff, 2022
Links
- Kiwi FM — Wikipedia (includes full Channel Z history)
- Channel Z was the little radio station that could — until it couldn’t — The Spinoff, 2022