By Justin Fenton
Enquirer staff writer

"The Future" is Monday for Oxford cyber-rock radio station 97X, which will resume broadcasting on the Web at 10 a.m., when DJ Barb Abney gets behind the mike for the first time since May.

The Web version of 97X, whose tagline is "The Future of Rock and Roll," counted tens of thousands of worldwide listeners. The Web-based broadcast, www.woxy.com, went off the air two months ago because of a lack of funding after the FM radio station was sold.

Two anonymous investors swooped in last month to get the station back up on the Web, which the owners had estimated would cost about $1.8 million.

"This is something that we thought we weren't going to be able to do, and it's almost a miracle that at the very last minute it came through," said the Web station's general manager, Brian Miller. "It's pretty unbelievable."

97X owners Doug and Linda Balogh sold the rights to the 97.7 FM signal to Dallas-based First Broadcasting earlier this year for $5.6 million. The Baloghs' Web broadcast will stream its own playlist using eight employees at their Oxford cyberstation.

The first week will be largely commercial-free.

"We're just going to come back on, and we'll be talking and hanging out and playing music," Martin said. "But no sort of special show."

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jfenton@enquirer.com