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Kaitaia broadcast empire Te Hiku Media is marking its 25th birthday tonight with a party at Roma Marae in Ahipara.
Hone Harawira kicked off the original iwi station when he was working as chief executive for Te Aupouri Maori Trust Board, but the mandate was always to serve all in the Far North.
Over the years it added other stations including country music and youth channels, as well as branching into local television and more recently online television.
Mr Harawira says it started with one technician poached from Radio New Zealand, Phil Broughton, a pair of borrowed turntables and a second hand valve desk that needed to be warmed up before it could start broadcasting.
"We couldn’t afford to have a transmitter go up the hill and another transmitter to broadcast so we started the station up on the hill at our Kokiri Centre in an old aircraft hangar with the doors banging and smacking around during the wind. Our first announcer in the mornings he had to sleep up there and it got to the point where I was ringing him at 5.30 every morning to make sure he actually got up and turned the desk on so that he would go to air. All those sorts of dramas bro but it was wonderful times, absolutely wonderful times, he says.
Hone Harawira says Te Hiku Media was the incubator for a many people who have gone on to successful careers in broadcasting and other occupations.
FULL INTERVIEW: HONE HARAWIRA
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