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A new station is set to launch in the intensely competitive Auckland radio market after securing a new frequency at a discount rate.
Independent station Big FM will challenge The Breeze and More FM for the ears of 30- to 60-year-old Aucklanders when it hits the airwaves in early November.
Station head, former More FM chief executive Larry Summerville, says the new station is just for Aucklanders and "doesn't give a hoot" about those north of Orewa or south of the Bombay hills.
A condition of buying the new frequency - 106.2FM - was that it served Auckland and Aucklanders.
The Government barred the two big players in the radio market - RadioWorks and The Radio Network (TRN) - from bidding for the new frequency, selling it to Big FM for about $800,000.
Mr Summerville said the station would have a newsroom of four journalists covering local news with a focus on Auckland sport.
David Innes of the commercial radio body, the Radio Broadcasters Association, said the station was going into an already intensely competitive Auckland market.
The station would have to work hard for its money, "but from the people I know who are involved, they're pretty experienced broadcasters".
He said it was too early to tell whether the station could become a third major independent player in a market dominated by TRN and RadioWorks.
Mr Innes said that, apart from the Christian Radio Rhema, there were still only two significant permanent commercial stations not owned by RadioWorks or TRN.
