Life FM plays contemporary Christian music to teens and young adults across Auckland, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty, but it started life in a different city entirely and still runs on a funding model that most commercial stations would find terrifying: almost entirely on what listeners choose to give.
Born in Christchurch, Grown in Auckland
Life FM first went on air in Christchurch on 6 March 1993, according to its Rhema Media network history. It stayed a South Island station for four years before extending its reach north, moving to broadcast from Auckland into Auckland, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty on 26 October 1997. That move gave the youth-focused network access to New Zealand's largest population center, a shift that has shaped its identity as an Auckland-based station ever since.
The Younger Sibling of a Much Older Network
Life FM belongs to Rhema Media, the Christian broadcasting group that traces back to Christchurch evangelical Richard Berry, who started the Gospel Radio Fellowship out of his own garage in the 1960s after being inspired by the Ecuadorian short-wave station HCJB. That project grew into Radio Rhema, which began full-time broadcasting on 11 November 1978 and expanded into a national network through the 1980s. Life FM operates as Rhema's younger, youth-oriented sister station, deliberately distinct from Rhema's more family-focused format and built specifically around contemporary Christian music aimed at a teenage and young adult audience.
Almost Entirely Listener-Funded
What keeps Life FM on air is not advertising in the traditional sense. Rhema Media's network draws roughly 75 percent of its operating costs directly from listener donations, leaning on annual fundraising appeals to stay solvent. A student writer for Otago's Critic Te Ārohi magazine, who spent time listening to the station for a feature, noted the donation drives came with real incentives attached, including a red Life FM bucket hat for supporters, alongside the frequent on-air appeals for support that punctuate the broadcast day.
Clean Pop With Casual Jesus Mentions
That same Critic feature described Life FM's sound as radio that plays like any other youth station until "the casual Jesus-mentions pop out," a mix of polished contemporary Christian pop, morning banter between DJs, and discussion segments tackling questions of faith and culture aimed squarely at a younger crowd. It is a format built to feel familiar to teenagers who grew up on mainstream pop radio, just filtered entirely through a Christian lens, right down to the on-air debates about whether practices like yoga fit within a Christian lifestyle.
A Small Network Piece With a Big Ask
Life FM's story is really the story of Rhema Media's slow expansion from one man's garage broadcast into a multi-station network, with Life FM carved out specifically to hold onto the next generation of listeners the flagship Rhema station was never built to reach. Three decades after its Christchurch launch, it is still asking the same audience it targets to keep it running, one donation and one bucket hat at a time.