{"id":627035,"date":"2026-10-11T05:02:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T05:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/627035\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T05:02:33","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T05:02:33","slug":"taupo-radio-icon-andrew-leiataua-dies-suddenly-after-30-years-with-more-fm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/627035\/","title":{"rendered":"Taup\u014d radio icon Andrew Leiataua dies suddenly after 30 years with More FM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cSean will be on air tomorrow morning from 6am and would love to hear from you as we grieve and remember our true local icon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">Leiataua won Best Music Host \u2013 Provincial at the 2014 New Zealand Radio Awards for The Andrew Leiataua Breakfast Show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">He was a finalist in the same category in 2011.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">Leiataua was also recognised for services to broadcasting at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/business\/media-insider\/media-insider-radio-and-podcast-awards-newstalk-zb-wins-station-of-the-year-heather-du-plessis-allan-named-broadcaster-of-the-year\/MDMSV3KWLRHG5JF4MR5RSZH754\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/business\/media-insider\/media-insider-radio-and-podcast-awards-newstalk-zb-wins-station-of-the-year-heather-du-plessis-allan-named-broadcaster-of-the-year\/MDMSV3KWLRHG5JF4MR5RSZH754\/\">2025 NZ Radio and Podcast Awards<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">He also appeared on Shortland Street in 1995.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">Out of the studio, Leiataua was involved in Taup\u014d community events and fundraisers, including Dancing for Life Education\u2019s inaugural fundraiser in 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">He later returned to the event as a judge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSean will be on air tomorrow morning from 6am and would love to hear from you as we&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3589,74,20251,7054,6179,7126,156,62298,12022,3218,120952,440,7570,130,111,139,69,10142,4965,23333,1852,20838,28066,102,1530],"class_list":["post-627035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-3589","tag-after","tag-andrew","tag-breakfast","tag-died","tag-dies","tag-entertainment","tag-fm","tag-host","tag-icon","tag-leiataua","tag-local","tag-longserving","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paid","tag-radio","tag-suddenly","tag-taup","tag-tribute","tag-true","tag-with","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}