RDU 98.5FM is Christchurch's independent alternative voice, founded on 23 February 1976 as Radio U under the University of Canterbury Students' Association. It became Christchurch's first FM station in 1986 and a member of the Student Radio Network, championing local and alternative music the commercial networks ignore. After the 2011 earthquake destroyed its studio, RDU famously kept broadcasting from a converted horse truck before settling in the Boxed Quarter. In 2026 it marks fifty years on air.