95bFM

Even if I couldn’t make a particularly positive case for bfm, I would still recommend it on the grounds that almost every other radio station in Auckland is unlistenable. How honestly terrible are 95 percent of Auckland’s radio stations. Bfm is the only station I ever bother listening to. Even in its current slightly more professional conformation, bfm’s student radio origins are well represented. I like that bfm is slightly unpolished, that there is no cohesive vision to the programming — a haphazardly genre specific play list on the best of days. Bfm has a terrestrial charm which sometimes gives it a higher priority than my mp3 player — talk about high praise.

You can’t not like bFm, really. You might not like the seemingly random switching between genres. You might not like the interminable hour at lunchtime of the wire — surely the worst time of the day to have droning amateur interviewers do their thing. You might not like the overwhelming bias of the playlist programmers to «indie rock». But you will like the self written ads. You will like the DIY ethos that runs throughout the vibe of the station, the support for local music that other radio stations barely pay lip service to. The music experts in their allocated slots playing the finest of their genres. bFm is like going to a buffet, a really good one, but one that still has some terrible meals available. But its a buffet you will always go back to.

«Noooo, not kebaaabsss.» Best ad ever. I almost like bFM just for their ads. They totally beat any other radio station in that respect, hands down. But I also like them for their seemingly random variety. Jazz show? Weird punky rock? Something that makes me think I’m listening to Coast? Important chats about things like the solar eclipse? Hearing Silke say «hallloooo!» on Freak the Sheep? It’s all there, plus some other cool and probably also some not so cool stuff (no offense, bFM, but I can’t like everything). It’s pretty reliably interesting although sometimes if I’m driving around lunch time I’m really just not in the mood for The Wire.

Ah, bfm, you old shapeshifter you. How can you be so ace and so boring? Not usually at the same time, mind you. There’s some really really good specialist shows on b, people who know their stuff in hiphop, country, funk, jazz, and a heap of other things as well as some people who just make good radio by fucking about on air and being themselves. These shows and the usually pretty solid playlist are the reasons to listen to b.
However, I can’t help be sad that they continue to shed good DJs, the most recent being Charlotte Ryan and her excellent show. It’s also sad that what used to be a decent breakfast show where you could listen to good tunes and hear about what was going on in the world, current affairs wise, is now mainly only about tunes.
FInally, you should listen to Finn’s show on Sunday mornings; it must be some of the best children’s broadcasting in the country. I can’t believe he’s spent years getting up at 6am on Sunday mornings to do this for free.

Radio Bosom is an institution, a pillar of Auckland’s culture that has been around for decades. And I shit you not, that’s what the B stands for.
This is officially the student radio station, but it’s good enough and has been around long enough that their audience is far wider than that. I regularly hear a friend’s dad call up to win prizes.
Because of their alternative, student status, bFM makes an effort to play things that you wouldn’t hear on the mainstream stations. This is a double-​edged sword, as not everything they play will be to everyone’s taste. But this gamble pays off when you hear new songs and new artists that you simply wouldn’t get exposed to otherwise. Another bonus of their rejection of mainstream radio is that they do their own ads in-​house rather than play the same crap everyone else does. This is good because a: mainstream radio ads are everything that is wrong with society, and b: bFM ads are really pretty good. Some of them are very, very funny, and half the time you remember the ad without even remembering what it was for. Not so great for the advertiser, but pretty great for you.