Scenicland FM

Scenicland FM was the name of a radio station on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.

Scenicland FM, originally known as Radio Scenicland, started broadcasting in 1968, and originally transmitted on 3 AM frequencies from Radio House on Mackay Street, Greymouth; original callsigns are in brackets.

Radio Scenicland moved to FM to improve coverage on the Coast in November 1992 and after the move became Scenicland FM. As a result of the move to FM, the station relinquished the two AM frequencies of 747 AM & 1521 AM. The relinquishment of the 747 AM frequency, in particular, was due to poor signal coverage and poor soil quality at the Kumara AM transmitter site.

The station initially transmitted in an FM mono signal until the feed was upgraded to stereo in late 1996 with further enhancements to the quality of the stereo signal in late 2000.

In 1998 Radio Scenicland became part of the Community Radio Network with all programming outside of the breakfast show being fed from a central studio originally based in Taupo. In 2001 all Community Radio Network stations became part of the Classic Hits FM network with programming outside of the breakfast show based from Auckland. At this point the station became known as Classic Hits Scenicland FM.

The frequencies that Classic Hits Scenicland FM presently transmits on are as follows

The 1287 AM signal in Westport continued to transmit the Scenicland FM feed due to FM coverage issues along the Coast Road, until late 2007 when the transmitter was changed to Newstalk ZB.

On April 28 2014 all stations part of the Classic Hits network were rebranded as The Hits. A networked breakfast presented by Pauline Gillespie and Grant Kareama was introduced to almost all The Hits stations. A local show between 9am and 3pm was then introduced and presented by Andy Mack