Sound check; New Radio Station tunes in to the oldies

A new radio station began broadcasting today from Lord’s Bank on 106.3 FM. It’s called Mood FM and it is owned by a former Radio Belize DJ Kenneth Moody. Mood FM will be on air twenty-four hours a day pumping country music, R & B, soul, reggae, disco and hip hop tunes. News Five’s Andrea Polanco reports.

Andrea Polanco, Reporting

Mood FM, a community based radio station officially started its broadcast today from Lord’s Bank Village boasting three studios; it is a radio station with a different mood for every day:

Kenneth Moody

Kenneth Moody

“I sat down for a long time, couple days, thinking on what I’ll name this station. I figured the call signs most of them for stations are four letters and I couldn’t come up with anything. And I was there writing all kinds of names and everything and then I got to my name and I stroked off the y and it said mood and I said ooh that was it. I got it right there. Mood FM a different mood for every program. This is a local radio station. I’m building it to serve Lord’s Banks and Ladyville community. It is also heard in Belize City and surrounding communities that include Sand Hill, Burrell Boom, Hattieville.”

The local twenty-four hour radio station will be airing a number of local programs with a strong focus on oldies music:

Kenneth Moody

“We will be having news programs but it’s an oldies station—we will feature music in the fifties, sixties, seventies, up to the present. We will also do community programs on Saturdays and Sundays and a little talk show. We’re gonna feature a lot of local artists and stuff and things like that. We’ll have programs in the morning featuring Belizean artists which will be a one hour program—seven to eight o’clock in the morning—and then we are going to invite people who are out there wanting to make records, CDs and we’re gonna feature them and also at six to eight in the evenings. We’re featuring building up community, community interest. Encourage local small businesses and stuff like that to build up their community.”

Moody says he hopes to share the oldies mood with other parts of the country:

Kenneth Moody

“I’m hoping that after a while if things work out the way it should, we can go to Belmopan or Stann Creek. We are not gearing up for the whole country—there is already a radio station doing that. I know a lot of people like oldies in Belize and this was something I always wanted to do.”

Mood Fm is Moody’s life-long dream:

Kenneth Moody

“It’s a dream. Actually I worked at Radio Belize in the sixties and seventies and this is something I wanted to do from teenager to build a radio station.”

Andrea Polanco

“Mr. Moody, tell me what kind of work did you put in to make all of this come together; in you realizing your dream?”

Kenneth Moody

“Well it took a lot of hard work. As you know I was living in the states for some time. I worked as an emergency medical technician for the last twenty-eight years and I ran an ambulance company in the Icelips. But it was always in the back of my mind that this is what I wanted to do and what I’ll come home to do when I retired. So when I retired in September last year, I decided that I will put everything into it.”

Now they are up and running so you can tune in to Mood Fm on 106.3. Reporting for News Five, I am Andrea Polanco.

According to Moody, thirteen persons from the community are employed.