95bFM has announced it will relocate to Karangahape Road by Friday, 31 July 2026, marking a major new chapter in the station’s nearly six-decade history.
After a long search for a suitable new home, 95bFM has today announced it will move to Karangahape Road. The move will place the station close to many of the music, arts, media, nightlife, student, and creative communities it has championed since 1969.
95bFM General Manager Tom Tremewan says the move is a significant moment for the station and also a major opportunity. “95bFM has been part of Auckland’s creative culture for 60 years. This is a big moment for the station and for everyone who has contributed to its history,” Tremewan says.
“95bFM has always been more than bricks and mortar. The station will continue to be the training ground for the next generation of broadcasters and rangatahi who want to learn about broadcasting, media, music, or journalism. It’s also one of the remaining refuges for those who simply want to find kinship in a creative community. Our purpose does not change because we are moving a ten-minute walk up the road.”
“K’Road is the logical next home for 95bFM. It keeps us close to the city, close to campus, and close to the musicians, artists, venues, listeners, and community who make up the cultural ecosystem that we exist to serve.”
“Our new home will deepen the station’s commitment to that ecosystem by placing 95bFM in the middle of one of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s most important cultural streets.”
Across nearly six decades, 95bFM has played an outsized role in Aotearoa New Zealand’s musical and cultural landscape. The station has long been a first point of airplay and support for emerging local artists, with AudioCulture noting that 95bFM was the first station to play Sister Underground’s “In The Neighbourhood”, OMC’s “We R The OMC”, 3 The Hard Way’s “Hip Hop Holiday”, and tracks by Dam Native, Sulata, Urban Disturbance, Ermehn, and Grace. Similarly, Che Fu’s APRA Silver Scroll-winning “Misty Frequencies” was conceived as a homage to tuning in to Murray Cammick’s Land of the Good Groove radio show on 95bFM, while the station was an early pioneer of online radio streaming in the country, establishing its first internet simulcast experiments in the early 1990s with students experimenting with IP Multicast Backbone technology.
On 95bFM’s airwaves and the wider Student Radio Network, early airplay and support has helped build audiences for artists who would go on to become some of our most important musical voices, such as Fat Freddy’s Drop, Bic Runga, Shihad, Marlon Williams, Aldous Harding, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, The Beths, Princess Chelsea, Scribe, Fazerdaze, Home Brew, Tiny Ruins, The Clean, Reb Fountain, The Chills, Vera Ellen, Troy Kingi, The Mint Chicks, Chris Knox, Delaney Davidson, Dimmer, Team Dynamite, and many, many more.
95bFM has also long been a training ground and launchpad for generations of local broadcasters, journalists, writers, comedians, and public figures. Alumni and former contributors include Charlotte Ryan, Aroha Harawira, Noelle McCarthy, Harriet Crampton, Chlöe Swarbrick, Graeme Hill, Jeremy Wells, David Farrier, Matt Heath, Mikey Havoc, Marcus Lush, Wallace Chapman, Russell Brown, Rhys Darby, Jaquie Brown, Jude Anaru, Debbi Gibbs, Gemma Gracewood, Paul Casserly, Murray Cammick ONZM, Simon Grigg, Nick Dwyer, Rebecca Wright, Tony Stamp, Jess Fu, Anna Bracewell-Worrall, Lillian Hanly, Jamiema Huston, and Sarah Thomson.
Many artists and DJs have also shaped the station from the inside by hosting shows on-air, including HALFQUEEN, Concord Dawn, State of Mind, MC Slave & Otis (Frizzell), Julien Dyne, DJ Sir-Vere, and DLT, to name just a few.
The relocation will be managed through a staged technical transition designed to protect broadcast continuity and minimise disruption.
“Obviously this isn't a simple ‘pack everything into boxes and plug it back in somewhere else’ kind of move,” Tremewan says. “Because we’re a live broadcast operation, the relocation has to happen in phases so we can protect our transmission, minimise downtime, and safely move 95bFM without breaking the station in the process. We have to work through the practical realities of moving six decades’ worth of radio history, broadcasting equipment, tattered office furniture, faded gig posters, dying pot plants, and spiritual residue. The plan is to manage the relocation in stages so we can keep broadcasting while the station is moved,
rebuilt, tested, and settled into its new home.”
The technical transition is being led by Rick Huntington, better known to generations of 95bFM listeners as Rick Breeze, the station’s long-serving technical director and engineer. Described by Russell Brown as 95bFM’s “ageless and imperturbable technical guy”, Huntington first encountered the station during an Orientation scavenger hunt in 1984 - the same year the station moved from AM to FM, and this year marks 42 years since Rick first began working with 95bFM.
“Nobody understands the vital organs of the station better than Rick - because he built most of it,” Tremewan says. “Rick’s been a part of nearly every major technical era of the station, from the AM-to-FM transition through outside broadcasts, digital systems, streaming, studios, and transmission. Having him lead the technical side of this move gives us all enormous confidence.”
Huntington developed 95bFM’s outside broadcast capabilities, including live broadcasts from the Hero Parade in the 1990s. Rick has built, repaired, moved, rewired, and rebuilt almost every part of the station’s technical infrastructure.
Despite the physical move, 95bFM remains committed to broadcasting on 95.0FM while continuing to grow its digital platform.
“Our future is not digital instead of radio. It is digital as well as radio. We’re committed to staying on-air, but we’re also building the digital infrastructure we need to reach new audiences, support local music, strengthen student radio’s public-interest role, and continue evolving as a modern independent media organisation,” Tremewan says.
The announcement comes during a period of renewed momentum for 95bFM. Recent commercial radio audience surveys have shown growth in the station’s weekly terrestrial listenership, with recent audience growth suggesting renewed appetite for local radio, music discovery, and independent news and current affairs. The station has been nominated for Independent Station of the Year at the NZ Radio & Podcast Awards for the second year in a row, which Tremewan says is “a reflection of all the hard work our community has put into
the station.”
In November, 95bFM will also host the Student Radio Network Aotearoa Alternative Awards at The Hollywood Avondale. Formerly known as the bNet Awards, the AAAs celebrate the artists, songs, albums, videos, broadcasters, and creative communities championed by Aotearoa’s student radio stations. Hosted in a different network station city each year, the awards bring together the five SRN stations - 95bFM, Radio Active, RDU, Radio One, and Radio Control - and recognise student radio’s long-standing role in supporting alternative, independent, and emerging local music before it reaches the wider mainstream.
With a big year for the station that is only getting busier, Tremewan says the move is a major undertaking, but one that the station and its community are ready for. “Other student radio stations, including RDU and Radio Active, have already been through major station moves and have come out the other end bigger, better, stronger, and more resilient. It can be done, and it will be done. 95bFM has moved through every possible version of media chaos over the last 60 years. This is another big one, but it is not bigger than us.”
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