I have recently moved away as I have said before and I have been going through all my recordings from 1985 to the present day and looking back choice fm pre 2001 was a good station and was never a pirate the other was the part time 103.3 with the silly name wnk who were pirates big difference between the 2 of the choice was the only one that made money so not to bad choice was 11 years old when they first went down the slippery slope of getting involved with capital

I early choice fm

Jazz FM (now smooth) 102.2 came on in 1989 IIRC with Melody (now Magic) 104.9 and Kiss 100 following in 1990

In the mid 1990's Melody moved up to 105.4 with XFM "inheriting" their old frequency.

On MW there was Spectrum (558/990) and the short lived Airport Information radio.

Of these stations the one with the most pirate heritage was Kiss (in their pirate days they were on 94.0)

Melody was not in 1989 it came in the summer of 1990 a few weeks before kiss 100 in September and kiss was due to have 104.9 but asked Melody if they could swap to have 100 so it could be called kiss 100 and jazz were first on air but it was March 1990 not 89 that's when they won the license the only station that did start in 89 was WNK/LGR on 103.3 who were sharing the frequency before WNK folded in 1994

Dunno if Capital Gold (1988) counts ?

Persona Non Grata wrote: ↑Sun Jan 23, 2022 5:11 pm Dunno if Capital Gold (1988) counts ?

No because the frequency was already in use as the medium wave for the main capital radio it was only a split service without any new frequency

Other (ex-pirates) which went legal in 1989 (or shortly thereafter):

LGR (London Greek Radio) initially in a timeshare with WNK (Wicked Neutral and Kicking)

Sunrise Radio

And (not sure of their pirate heritage -if any ?) Choice FM

Heart came later (mid 1990's) with X-FM later still While Virgin (later Absolute) got an FM frequency despite being on AM as well.

Persona Non Grata wrote: ↑Thu Apr 13, 2023 5:48 pm
And (not sure of their pirate heritage -if any ?) Choice FM

Choice wasn’t a pirate station and I don’t think the founders were even radio people. But they had credibility and were able to attract the right djs.

It was a great station for music and the community.

You are right choice was never a pirate but they employed quite a few ex LWR Solar and Horizon djs