Barbados Today

Hit music station MIX 96.9 FM has been reborn as Barbados’ newest inspirational radio station.

Directors Scott and Ann Marie Weatherhead announced in a statement that as of Tuesday, the 15-year-old station will “continue to play the best hit music on planet earth, for young adults and the young at heart, but only those songs which are uplifting, inspiring and encouraging; as well as programming, promotions and exciting events which help to uplift, inspire and encourage our nations young people, to live their lives in the way that Christ taught us to live”.

They said the decision was not a commercial one, nor driven by any financial incentive, but one that answered God’s call.

MIX 96.9 FM started in November 2001 with mostly Top 40 music on its rotation, but Christian contemporary hits began featuring more from January 2008.

Scott said when he and his wife gave their lives to the Lord the following year, things changed even more, as they became uncomfortable with the messages the secular songs were sending to listeners, especially young people.

“As parents, we had a real problem with this and the negative implications that this music would have on our society, since music is such a powerful and much loved medium. Over the years, we have found ourselves removing more and more songs from our playlist, due to their lyrical content, as the secular Top 40 charts become populated with songs filled with hate, drug use, alcohol abuse, sexual innuendo and other negative content,” he said.

“Barbados is going down a very serious and destructive path. Many of our young people are lost, and God would like them to know Him, and to have a relationship with Him. This station will, from today, be a guiding light for this nation’s young people, to guide them to know and have a relationship with God, if they haven’t done so before,” he added.

MIX96.9 FM will maintain its name, but the Weatherheads stressed that its slogan, branding, image, music and programming will all change.

“When you are baptized, you are not given a new name. This is to be a testimony to God, so that everyone may remember who you were, and will now see you for who you have become, born anew in Jesus Christ,” they said.

“Just as we are baptized with water and are born anew, putting away our old selves and being born anew in Jesus Christ through baptism, so this radio station has been baptized, so to speak, and is born anew.”