100 Years of ZB: A new direction – the birth of Newstalk ZB

The year was 1987 and 1ZB was at a crossroads. 

Longtime breakfast host Merv Smith jumped ship in January, moving to captain Radio i's breakfast show, and the station so used to holding the number 1 spot in Auckland found itself competing not only for listeners, but for advertisers as well. 

The splintering radio landscape caused by the introduction of FM frequencies in 1981 left 1ZB, still on AM, on the back foot. 

Bill Francis, former Head of the Station and author of ‘ZB: The Voice of an Iconic Radio Station’ told the 100 Years of ZB Podcast that it became clear that in order to survive in the rapidly expanding market, 1ZB had to find a niche. 

“And “all things for all people” wasn’t actually a niche.” 

This was also what tempted Smith over to the competition, and his leaving forced 1ZB’s hand. Sink or swim? A change had to be made. 

Initially the path forward was less than clear. Francis says management considered five options – four were music formats, and one was the news and talk format that was becoming increasingly popular overseas. 

The choice was clear, and the news and talk format was selected.  

But who would the voices of this new 1ZB be? And who would take over the critical breakfast spot? 

The answer came from the Mornings host from 2ZB in Wellington – Sir Paul Holmes. 

He rated well, was well-liked by listeners, and although he was a bit of an unknown in the news and current affairs space, his well-documented love of news was enough to convince the bosses he was the man for the job. 

Management may have been set on him, but Holmes himself took a bit more convincing as he was less than eager to abandon his number one spot in the nation's capital. However, after some negotiations, he agreed to sign on. 

And so on Monday 6th of March, 1987, with all the pieces now in place, Newstalk 1ZB was born. 

Holmes hosted the breakfast show, but he was far from the only voice on the station. Leighton Smith hosted the morning talkback show and Phil Warren took on the afternoon slot.  

When listeners were making their way home from work in the evening, the man behind the mic was John Cordery. 

And only a few months after the launch, Newstalk 1ZB got a bit of a coup, luring Chris Carter over from the main competitor, Radio Pacific, to take on the 8pm to midnight shift. 

Of course, hosts aren’t the only voices on Newstalk 1ZB – Phillip Sherry, the long-time TVNZ newsreader, was the station’s first breakfast newsreader. The original sports reader was Barry Holland, and Peter Everatt was the station’s first ‘Time-Saver Traffic’ presenter. 

Despite the stacked roster, things weren’t exactly rosy for Newstalk 1ZB, the change in format seeing the station drop in the rankings – going from number 1 in Auckland to number 6.  

In the time-honoured tradition of making fun of your rival’s plights, Radio Pacific even released a shirt reading ‘1ZB to 6ZB’, Francis recalled. 

There were immediate questions as to whether Holmes was the right man for the breakfast slot —something even he himself was questioning— and focus groups highlighted a few issues as well. 

But despite the teething issues, they stuck with both the format and Holmes, and things slowly began to turn around.  

Newstalk 1ZB’s perseverance had paid off.  

Ratings gradually improved – the Paul Holmes Breakfast reclaimed the number 1 ranking after two years, and the Leighton Smith Show was leading by the end of 1989. 

And the second survey of 1990 saw the station as a whole return to its rightful place at the top of the rankings.  

The improving ratings also helped restore revenue, which had gone from 24.9% of the Auckland market to 11.6%, before climbing back to 22.7% by 1989. 

The format became so successful that it was adopted by Wellington’s 2ZB and Christchurch’s 3ZB in 1991, with Dunedin’s 4ZB making the shift in 1993. 

Convincing other markets to take Holmes as their breakfast host was one of the harder things Francis remembers doing, but they managed it in the end, and the payoff has been well worth it. 

Newstalk ZB had found its footing, but the best was still yet to come.  

Archival audio from the collections at Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision.