Radio Active, the station that championed the Wellington sound for almost 40 years, faced closure early in 2017.

Radio Active, the station that championed the Wellington sound for almost 40 years, is facing closure.

Unless someone stepped in to take the reins of the money-losing station by March 15, the dial would go quiet at 88.6FM, company director Nicholas Bagnall said.

Active began as a Victoria University station in 1977 before, in the early 1990s, being bought out by shareholders.

ANDREW GORRIE Radio Active station manager Dave Gibbons promotes a Christchurch quake benefit gig with San Fran's Ziggy Ziya.

It would go on to champion the early careers of some of Wellington's most-successful bands including Fat Freddy's Drop, Phoenix Foundation, and Trinity Roots. John Campbell's early broadcasting was there when it was still a student station.

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While it had never been a money-making station, Bagnall said the past few years had seen him having to prop the station up with his own money as online advertising cut into the station's ability to make money.

FAIRFAX NZ Radio Active DJs, left to right, Phil Reed, Liam Ryan and Lucy von Sturmer in the studio in 2010.

"I have decided I didn't want to keep doing that.

"It would certainly be a liquidation [eventually] but in the short-term ... it just won't be trading."

Staff, all who would be made redundant, were being told on Monday morning.

JEFF McEWAN Radio Active 89FM One Love Concert draws the crowds in 2006.

The station would be turning 40 this year.

"It is sad. I'm hoping that someone else will keep it alive. But if no-one steps up it will be the end of Radio Active."

But Radio Active station manager Dave Gibbons was adamant the station was not going to close.

ROBERT KITCHIN/FAIRFAX NZ Radio Active DJ Liam Luff in the Victoria St studios in 2007.

"All we are doing is winding up the limited liability [company]," he said.

The station did, though, need money to stay afloat and asked if it had investors putting their hands up, Gibbons said, "potentially, yes".

Phoenix Foundation's Samuel Flynn Scott said the station's championing of new music had lasted decades and staff were approachable and encouraging even as a young band turning up with a burnt CD of their latest track.

If it hadn't been for Active "I don't know how we would have got our music out at all", Scott said.

Broadcaster John Campbell said "there is no doubt in my mind" that his career started as a result of Active, which was still a student station at Victoria University when he was involved.

"It was the most glorious fun - it was just sheer joy being part of Radio Active."

As a result of being heard doing an alternative rugby commentary on Active he was offered a cadetship as a business reporter at Radio NZ.

He remembered the former general manager Mark Cubey "introducing a lot of white folk in Wellington to hip-hop".

Now-Government Minister Maggie Barry was an announcer at Active in 1977 when news came through that Elvis Presley had died.

"I remember going on air and saying, 'the King is dead' - it was very emotional," she recalled in 2007.

Wellington publicist Sarah Hunter - who has worked for the likes of Taki Rua, Roots Foundation, Fat Freddy's, The Nudge, and Trinity Roots - said the station's heyday was in the late 1990s to early 2000s, when thousands flocked to its annual One Love public concerts on Waitangi Day.

"To make a gig happen you just had to have Radio Active support it," she said.

The landscape for radio was changing but there was a "whole raft" of independent stations - such as Sweet Sounz which ran out of Berhampore, Wellington - now operating on small budgets and streaming online without big overhead costs.

Phil Reed, now lead press secretary for the Labour Party, DJed on Active and fondly recalled the events it put on, such as One Love.

"We did it all by the seat of our pants, fuelled by the love of the staff and its DJs," he said.

Bagnall said he would provide the company with funds to pay staff a small redundancy, honour all undisputed trade debts, and meet Radio Active's obligations to its bank and Inland Revenue.