Pulzar FM in both of its incarnations was a wonderful thing, a radio station that bought together a diverse mix of music lovers and created a hub for them to express themselves, to share new and exciting tunes with one another and to accept all that cared to tune in. From the launch on August 18^th 1999 through to the relaunch on full power across all of Canterbury on April 18^th 2009, and then surviving through the Canterbury earthquakes and all the upheaval they caused, Pulzar FM was on-air as much as possible, playing positive music and sending out supportive vibes to the community. Unfortunately like any business, Pulzar FM had costs, and through the intensely tough economic time that Christchurch has gone through in 2011, sales never achieved what was required to keep the station on-air. So, like other stations around the country that also launched high profile broadcasting ventures as the world entered the Global Financial Crisis on 2008-2010, stations like XFM in Wellington, Big FM in Auckland and BoP FM in Tauranga, 105.7 Pulzar FM has been forced to call it a day, and sign out for now.

The station started as the dream of Andy Poulsen & Jason Akehurst, who recognised the need for a dedicated dance music radio station in Christchurch in the late 90’s. Fully staffed by volunteers for the initial venture, broadcasting on low power across the Christchurch CBD, Pulzar FM offered up a fresh music mix, great local talent (many of whom have gone on to greater success elsewhere), and excellent live DJ slots every night of the week for several years. Restricted in broadcast power by strictly enforced legislation in late 2007, Pulzar FM closed down, only to rise again in May 2008 when the first commercial frequencies to be auctioned in Canterbury in 18 years came up for auction as a local commercial radio station. With a month’s notice, Andy & Jason raised enough funds to successfully purchase 105.7fm, and take their dream of changing the broadcast landscape of Christchurch to the next level.

Pulzar FM Mark 2 struggled in the launch phase, with a critical investor pulling out of the deal the day before it was due to close, meaning the essential funding that was needed to get the station up and running wasn’t there. Andy & Jason did all they could to cut costs and bought in Sebastian Wild, a friend and fellow DJ, as a business partner. The station launch was pushed back (from February) and kicked off with a low key launch on April 18^th, 2009.

105.7 Pulzar FM was a more “mainstream” station than the original dance format, but succeeded in attracting a strong youth audience, and slowly built up a listener base along with a number of advertising clients. In the first radio survey of 2010, Pulzar FM proved its format was working, especially with young people, achieving a result of 9.3% of the 18-24 market (by contrast, respected station 91ZM only surveyed at 6.5% in the same demographic), and until the first earthquake struck Christchurch on September 4^th the feeling of the team at Pulzar FM was that they were achieving their goals of bringing a new sound to Christchurch radio.

Following the first earthquake on September 4^th 2010 the station was forced off-air for 24 hours after power was cut to the CBD, returning on Monday afternoon with a temporary autopilot installation at the Sugarloaf broadcast site. It was three weeks before Pulzar FM was back to normal after the CBD reopened and “Pulzar Towers” was deemed safe to enter. Post-quake, sales struggled to regain momentum and it wasn’t until February that things were looking up again for the station.

On Friday February 18^th, Station Manager Andy Poulsen proudly announced to the sales team that they had achieved their best month yet, were finally breaking even, and were on an excellent course for the next few months. And then, at 12:51 on Tuesday February 22^nd, another, more devastating, earthquake hit Christchurch’s CBD. Andy & Jason were dining together at the time, discussing strategy for marketing the station over the next few months, and celebrating the fact they were finally on the track they’d been pursuing for 12 years. Running out into the street, they first assisted with lifting rubble from someone trapped outside Iconic Nightclub before excusing themselves to run up Manchester Street to check on their team and assess the state of the building. Pulzar Towers was still standing and the boys ran up 5 flights of stairs to grab backup drives and broadcast a short live message telling Canterbury what had happened. At the time, no one realised that Pulzar FM was the only radio station still broadcasting in Christchurch!

Through that day, and the following weeks, the Pulzar team were fortunate that Andy had relocated to Redwood the previous November, and with power and internet still working were able to record audio and upload it to their broadcast systems, giving them a quasi-live station, while most other stations were running feeds from Auckland.

In April Pulzar FM moved to Leslie Hills Drive in Riccarton, and started again from scratch, having not been able to gain access to their original building. With most businesses devastated by the earthquakes, Pulzar sought to rebuild its sales team and regain some of the previous momentum, but it was an uphill battle that was never going to be easy. As the new broadcaster on the block, clients were hard to come by, and with little cash behind them, the management team at Pulzar knew it was only a matter of time until some hard decisions would need to be made.

After Andy lost half his income with the destruction of Malbas Nightclub he was forced to move to Sydney for work, leaving Jason and new station manager Alex Mann to run things back home. While a concerted effort was made, the sales that were needed never eventuated, and so then the management team turned to other possibilities to keep the station alive, entering into negotiations with several parties to try and keep the Pulzar dream alive. Sadly, it wasn’t to be. Negotiations fell through, and on December 7^th at 5pm, Pulzar FM had their 105.7 frequency turned off by Kordia.

Pulzar FM was a labour of love by many people, far too many to name here individually. But a huge thanks goes out to each and every of the people that gave of their time to host a show, record an ad, help out with promotions, pick up a phone to make sales, and all the other little things that go into making a radio station wonderful. It was a dream that never achieved its full potential, and basically that’s just the way the dice fell. But hey, we gave it a damn good crack. Thanks for 13 amazing years.