Vixen 101 - History

History

The concept for Vixen came from a local Market Weighton born and bred man, Paul Stellings. By the start of 2002, Stellings had 18 years broadcasting and management experience with Radio Medica, a local hospital radio station. This, together with his involvement with other radio projects in the area, and his work with the Giant Bradley Festival Committee in Market Weighton, led him to thinking that it would be good for the area to set up a temporary radio station to promote the Giant Bradley Festival and Market Weighton's local businesses, and offer local information. Another part of the plan was to provide a very wide music policy, including music from as far back as the 1940s and 1950s, together with specialist music programmes, rarely catered for by other broadcasters.

At that time, Market Weighton and the surrounding villages were in the middle of a government-funded regeneration project initiated through Yorkshire Forward, and managed by the, Weighton Area Regeneration Partnership (WARP). With many ideas and new projects starting to take shape in the area, it seemed like a good time and a major step forward in this new dawning era for the area to bring a truly local radio service to the population.

So it was in January 2002 that Stellings started the process of setting up Vixen 87, with the target of the first month-long broadcast commencing in May 2003. Setting up a high quality, professional-sounding new radio station from scratch is a mammoth and expensive task. Sixteen months was calculated as being a realistic timescale to set up Vixen 87.

After initially obtaining help from the Council For Voluntary Service (CVS) in Beverley, Stellings called upon a couple of experienced colleagues from Hospital Radio, and some members of the local Chamber of Trade, for their collective expertise in broadcasting and operating businesses. The group formed a committee, and drew up an official constitution to create the organisation, Market Weighton Community Radio, which would broadcast under the call sign Vixen 87.

After over a year of working with potential grant funders, recruiting volunteers, purchasing equipment, finding premises for the station and a transmitter site, building studios, working through a multitude of officialdom with many bodies, including The Radio Authority (now OFCOM), The Performing Rights Society, Phonographic Performance Ltd, The Mechanical Copyright Society and many others, the station launched on target at 8 minutes to 7 a.m. on Sunday, 4 May 2003. That time of day was chosen to coincide with the first part of the station's frequency of 87.9 FM, with a national news bulletin at 7:00 a.m. followed by the breakfast show at 7:03 a.m., presented by the founder himself, starting off with the track "Inner Smile" by the pop group Texas.

In May 2011, Vixen 101 presenters Bill Horncastle and Dave Henderson set a new world record by presenting a 53-hour-long radio show, beating the record set by Chris Moyles of Radio 1 by one hour. The record is still subject to final confirmation by Guinness.