Listen with glee, or should we?

One of Oxford’s very own commercial radio stations has made global headlines this week, thanks to a campaign plot with more levels than Inception ….

Launching a new radio station in a crowded market was never going to be easy, but at least these guys had done their homework:

• They had an existing licence as the new station was a switchover from troubled youth station 107.9FM
• They had a target market – twenty-something, high consuming females
• They had content – upbeat and hugely popular tracks from TV and film
• They had a name … or did they?

On Monday the station was launched as Glee FM with a playlist of around 80 songs featured in the hit TV series.  The news was joyfully received by the world’s media and picked up by Sky News as well as the radio trade, and even celebrity blogger Perez Hilton’s eyebrows were raised.  The station’s savvy Twitterfeed went into overdrive with a flurry of classy updates promoting the station, the Glee cast and songs.  Glee FM had, it seems, scored a global hit in a few short hours – what a great way to launch a new station.

But last night avid fans logged onto the news that Glee has become Glide.  Why?

It was all a joke, apparently, and the station managers claim that the whole Glee thing was a stunt.  Glide’s programme director Sue Carter says in the Oxford Times: “The publicity it has generated around the world has completely amazed us, so we thought we’d better come clean before we get in any trouble.”

Glide FM, with the strapline ‘you’ll feel every song’ finally debuted on air at 7am this morning and by the look of its Twitterfeed has been met with, well, glee by a rapidly growing throng of followers. Such a good start is brilliant news and the station is a welcome addition to our regional airwaves.

However, it might take a while before we’re all fully convinced that Glide is for real and Glee was in fact, just a dream …

… or is it the other way round?