It couldn't have happened at a worse time as it's only a few months before the station formerly known as Fox FM would have turned 20.
It was the born out of the company First Oxfordshire Brodcasting which was made up of representatives from both Capital Radio, and County Sound Radio in Guildford including County Sound MD Mike Powell.
The station broke many barriers in broadcasting upon it's launch by becoming one of the few stations at the time to make use of Selector as it's source for music as introduced sucesfully on County Sound back in 1986.
The first record played was "Uptown Girl" on the station's launch on Friday 15th of September 1989, along with a new custom package by Alfasound with Dallas vocals.
1989 Jingles - Alfasound
That has to be one of my favourite custom Alfasound packages from around that era, blending in the talent of the musicians in Manchester, with that of the singers in the US.
One cut I like in particular is the rather sparkly one at 1.14 and it's definitely worth hearing a few examples of it sung for other stations.
One being this rather nice version for "Lite FM" with a different vocal group as part of JAM's budget "LX" series, whilst the other is a less than impressive version with UK singers for Irish local radio station "Northern Sound".
Presenters at the launch included Tony James from County Sound, Steve Ellis from Severn Sound, newcomer Steve Priestly who's now at Magic 105.4, and former Radio 1 and London Plus newsreader Jane Markham who introduced the Fox Report which won a Sony Radio Award.
By 1993 the station introduced some additional jingles from JAM Creative Productions which were resings of the "Hot KIIS" and "Fresh KIIS" packages appropriately enough.
The two cuts towards the end from the Fresh KIIS package had also been used on Radio 1 in the late 80s.
The audio quality's not great which is a shame because they are rather good cuts.
1993 Jingles - JAM Creative Productions
Two years later the station brought a new custom package from Alfasound giving a fresher livelier take on the 1989 package with a revised version of the news intro.
Another example which proves that ALFA really were the best jingle company in the UK.
1995 Jingles - Alfasound
However by the late 90s Capital Radio had taken full control of the station and turned it into a "Hit Music" format along with the rest of their stations in the group which many thought was the wrong thing to do as the station was based in a mainly rural area and the style of the station reflected this through its presentation.
Oxford isn't particuarly a young vibrant sort of place in the same way as London but the changes made by Capital were nowhere near as drastic as the GWR takeovers were.
Around 2000 the station had brought a pacakge from Reelworld in Seattle and a few off air examples alongside liners with the voices of Rik Scott and "Showbiz" Mitch Johnson can be heard below.
2000 Jingles - Reelworld Productions
A couple of years later the station bought the first of two custom pacakges from IQ Beats, also based in Seattle.
The first one can be heard below and I'll let you judge for yourself whether it really gives you an idea of what Oxford is like.
2002 Jingles - IQ Beats
In 2005 Capital merged with GWR and as a result, the "One Network" was introduced and the station started leaning towards GWR programming techniques with more networking and less than inspiring output.
However in spite of the changes taking place tomorrow morning, the station mascot Freddie The Fox will live on in the minds on many Oxfordshire residents.
Thanks to Andrew Rogers and Paul McGrath for various audio and information.
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