Also known as: Radio Ripper
Frequency: 91.0FM
Coverage: Dunedin city-wide
Location: Otago University, Dunedin
Format: Student radio / Alternative
Founded: 6 February 1984
Active: 1975–present
Website: r1.co.nz
History
The story of Radio One 91FM begins not in 1984 but nearly a decade earlier, in 1975, when a temporary student broadcast called Radio Ripper went to air from the University of Otago’s Student Union building during orientation week. A one-off experiment at the time, Radio Ripper was repeated in subsequent years, keeping alive the idea of a dedicated student radio station for Dunedin. It was a scrappy, informal thing — a proof of concept rather than a permanent institution — but it planted a seed that would take root.
By the early 1980s, that seed was being tended carefully. Netherworld Dancing Toys’ Graham Cockcroft and Sneaky Feelings’ David Pine, along with fellow student Paul Dougherty, pushed the Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA) to establish a permanent station. The Otago University Radio Club formed in 1983 to acquire the necessary equipment and navigate the legal requirements, while Alistair Thomson wrote an open letter to OUSA President Phyllis Comerford setting out the case for a proper station. Thomson outlined six objectives: to broadcast alternative music, provide student information, offer community access, train aspiring broadcasters, improve the university’s public image, and give the Higher Education Development Centre a platform for airtime.
On 6 February 1984 — Waitangi Day — Radio One went to air on 91.0MHz, becoming the city’s first FM station. The launch was made possible by a grant of approximately $12,000 from OUSA. The station’s base of operations was a cramped space on the first floor of the Student Union building — the OUSA’s former boardroom — and broadcasts were carried via a small transmitter perched on the top of the campus’s tallest building, the eleven-storey Richardson Building, giving just enough signal to reach across central Dunedin. Graham Cockcroft served as the station’s first manager.
The timing proved momentous. Radio One launched into one of the most creatively charged moments in New Zealand music history. Dunedin in the early 1980s was home to a cluster of bands making something angular, jangly, and distinctly their own — what would come to be called the Dunedin Sound. Commercial radio had little interest: the music was too unpolished, too alternative, too strange. Radio One had no such reservations. The station played The Chills, The Bats, Sneaky Feelings, The Verlaines, and the emergent roster of Flying Nun Records when no one else would. Matthew Bannister, lead singer of Sneaky Feelings, later wrote in his book Positively George Street that student radio was a major factor in the success of his band’s debut album. For the Dunedin Sound bands, Radio One was not merely a broadcaster — it was a lifeline.
The list of people who passed through the Radio One doors in those early years reads like a roll call of New Zealand music. Straitjacket Fits’ Shayne Carter worked as a presenter. Jan Hellriegel was on staff. Look Blue Go Purple’s Lesley Paris worked there regularly. The station was simultaneously a broadcaster and an incubator, a place where the people making Dunedin’s music also helped get it on air.
The station grew rapidly in its early years. In 1986, under manager Chris Lambourne, Radio One transitioned to year-round, 24-hour operation — it had previously broadcast only over limited periods. That same year it launched a subscriber scheme called the Rad-One Card (later the Onecard), offering discounts at Dunedin retailers and venues. By 1987 the station had outgrown its cramped Student Union space and relocated to purpose-built facilities in a new annex of the Student Union building. That same year a new transmitter was installed at Mount Cargill, 650 metres above sea level and 12 kilometres north of the city, dramatically extending the station’s reach from a few city blocks to the entire coastal Otago region, from Oamaru in the north to Balclutha in the south.
1987 also brought the station its most dramatic news scoop. In May of that year, Radio One’s news department received a tip from a former Otago student — a ham radio operator based in Fiji — about a military coup then underway. The station broadcast the news half an hour before Radio New Zealand, making it the first radio station in the world to report the Fiji coup. It was a remarkable moment for what was still, in many respects, a modest student operation.
The 1990s brought further professionalisation. Breakfast hosts became semi-professional, conducting live interviews and talkback. The station began live streaming at the turn of the century and later moved into podcasting, extending its reach globally. New facilities housed a production studio that became, in the words of those who used it, a popular birthplace for Dunedin recordings. Radio One was proving itself not just a student broadcaster but a genuine part of the city’s music infrastructure. The station was also a launching pad for careers beyond music: presenter Wallace Chapman went on to a prominent career in national media, as did Samantha Hayes, while Aaron Hawkins — who served as Music Director from 2010 — later became a Dunedin city councillor.
In 2010 the station faced the gravest threat in its history. The introduction of voluntary student association membership put pressure on OUSA’s finances, and the association commissioned a Deloitte report to assess Radio One’s financial value. The conclusion raised the prospect of selling the station to private interests. Staff and supporters were alarmed: a privately owned Radio One would, they feared, abandon everything that had made it significant. The station’s response was both creative and pointed — it broadcast a continuous loop of ambient music interspersed with explanatory messages about what was at stake. The protest resonated. Hundreds of submissions opposing the sale flooded in, and OUSA ultimately reversed course, recognising the station as both culturally valuable and relatively inexpensive to maintain, funded through advertising revenue and an annual NZ On Air grant of approximately $100,000.
Today Radio One operates 24 hours a day, year-round, from the OUSA Building at 640 Cumberland Street. It is part of the Student Radio Network alongside four other New Zealand student stations. The station continues to prioritise local music — typically carrying 42 to 46 percent New Zealand content, well above its minimum one-third requirement — and runs regular programmes dedicated entirely to local artists. Onefest mini-festivals and the 91 Club live gig series keep the station embedded in the life of the city. Ōtepoti’s sonic landscape has changed since the days of The Chills and Dimmer, but Radio One’s commitment to championing independent and alternative music has not.
Radio One was not the first student radio station to be set up in New Zealand, nor was it the last. Arguably, however, it was one of the most important, especially during its early years at the height of the first wave of the Dunedin Sound.
James Dignan, AudioCulture