Also known as: 93FM Gold, Classic Hits, Adult Contemporary
Frequency: 92.9FM
Coverage: Christchurch city-wide
Location: Christchurch
Format: Classic rock / Gold / Classic Hits / Adult Contemporary
Founded: 1986
Active: 1986–2001
History
C93FM launched in 1986 as one of Christchurch’s early commercial FM stations, broadcasting on 92.9MHz at a time when FM radio was still establishing itself in New Zealand. The station began as a classic rock outlet, filling a niche in a city where radio had long been dominated by the AM dial. Operated by C93FM Limited — an independent company that also ran the Easy Listening i94.5 sister station — it built a loyal audience with guitar-driven programming rooted in the previous two decades of rock.
C93FM’s most enduring contribution to New Zealand music came in 1988, when station employee Ron Kjestrup — a local musician — conceived a band competition called Rockquest. The idea was modest: a local radio promotion to showcase young talent. Twenty bands entered, around a thousand people turned out, and nobody foresaw what it would become. When C93FM rebranded as 93FM Gold in 1989 and stepped back from the event, Kjestrup passed it on to two Christchurch high school music teachers who had attended with their students: Pete Rainey and Glenn Common. They took it national. By 1990, with government and Coca-Cola funding, Rockquest had expanded to five regional finals feeding a national championship. In 1991 Smokefree became the title sponsor, giving the competition its long-running name: Smokefreerockquest. Over the following decades it became one of New Zealand’s most significant youth music platforms — alumni include Bic Runga, Anika Moa, Ladyhawke, Brooke Fraser, The Naked and Famous, Kimbra, and Alien Weaponry. All of it traces back to a radio station promotion in Christchurch in 1988.
Back at 92.9FM, C93FM continued to evolve. The 93FM Gold rebrand of 1989 gave way to 93FM Classic Hits in 1990, then in 1991 the station reverted to the C93FM name with a refreshed classic rock identity. That format held for most of the decade, and C93FM Limited — now running C93FM as its flagship — remained one of the more resilient independent operators in the Canterbury market. In 1997, The Radio Network made two separate bids to acquire C93FM Limited, in March and again in May; both were blocked by the Commerce Commission on the grounds that the acquisition would give The Radio Network a dominant position in the Christchurch radio market. C93FM Limited instead sold to Radio Otago, a Dunedin-based operator that had expanded northward.
The Easy Listening i94.5 sister station was wound up in 1997, leaving C93FM as the sole remaining outlet. Radio Otago itself was acquired by Radioworks in 1999, and the new owners moved quickly to nationalise their network. In Dunedin and Invercargill, stations operating under the C93FM brand were converted to The Rock, Radioworks’ nationwide classic rock network. In Christchurch, the approach was different: Radioworks steered C93FM away from its long-established classic rock format toward Adult Contemporary, rebranding it as C93FM Canterbury’s Big Music Mix. The shift stripped away the programming that had defined the station for thirteen years and failed to attract new listeners in return. An audience built on decades of guitar rock did not follow a station playing soft pop.
C93FM went off the air in April 2001. The 92.9FM frequency passed to Solid Gold, a national oldies network, before on 1 January 2012 relaunching as The Sound — a classic rock station that, in a sense, reprised the original C93FM format for a new generation. The frequency that had carried Christchurch’s first major FM classic rock station was once again playing classic rock.
The first Rockquest was held in 1988, organised by Christchurch radio station C93FM as a local event. Ron Kjestrup, a local musician, created the inaugural Rockquest as part of his role at the radio station. The competition was modest in scale, featuring only 20 bands with an audience of approximately 1,000 people.
AudioCulture, Smokefreerockquest