As of tomorrow morning, Toronto will get a chance to hear just what a gay radio station sounds like. Claiming to be the world's first commercially licensed radio station to specifically target the gay, lesbian and transgendered communities, 103.9 PROUD FM hits the local airwaves at 6 a.m. The station's arrival caps a 10-year wait for such a license, but almost as impressive are the folks who are going to be – ahem – manning the booth.

Ken Kostick and the (still non-gay) Mary Jo Eustace are a known commodity, as the pair hosted more than 600 episodes of the cooking show What's for Dinner. Now the two are taking their schtick to the audio airwaves with a morning show called What's for Breakfast. As they sit in the offices of the new gaydio station at Church and Wellesley, it's obvious their easy chemistry is no act. The pair finishes each other's sentences, but despite their long-standing relationship, there's still room for unpredictability.

Eustace is talking about switching to a new medium: "At the same time, because we have a 13-year history, you know it feels like ..."

"Don't even go down that road," interrupts Kostick.

"What?" she says.

"You're going to say that it feels like being married," he says.

"No. Been there, done that. It doesn't feel like that," she quips.

"And what's your response?" he asks.

"My response is that it feels a bit like when we started What's for Dinner, how fun it was, and how much fun we had everyday, it was kind of unique," she says.

Eustace is still tabloid fodder, after her ex-husband Dean McDermott began a public affair with actor Tori Spelling while the couple was still married, but Eustace is certainly not above making fun of herself. The broadcast duo gets into another bit where Kostick needles her about how the show's early call time means she's been wearing the same clothes for three days, including a gorgeous yellow jacket. She sheepishly pulls out the latest issue of Hello! magazine, and the jacket's there – in a two-page spread featuring Eustace.

So far, PROUD FM's website proudfm.com has been airing a loop of music along with some promotional clips, as the on-air personalities work on their acts. For Kostick and Eustace, it's been an easy transition – they like to bring up the fact that years ago, Eustace outed Kostick on television long before it was fashionable ("We though it was an obviousity, but not to all the viewers. Many thought we were married. Can you believe that?" she says). Although as they've been pre-taping a few pieces and preparing for tomorrow's debut, there have been a few slips of the tongue that come with the new gig, although none of the Don Imus variety.

"My favourite is this, `you're listening to What's for Dinner.' But that's understandably hard to kick after 600 shows," says program director and operations manager Rob Basile. "It's What's for Breakfast now."

But does Toronto need a queer radio station? Eustace says yes. "We're not as liberal as we like to think. On certain radio stations we couldn't talk about some of the things we talk about, and how we express ourselves. And this is a different forum. There is going to be some leeway, and there is a different voice," says Eustace.

"I think what it's going to do is push the envelope with all the other radio stations," says Kostick. "I'm going to be able to say, `Hey, I think Justin Timberlake is pretty hot'."

For Deb Pearce, the midday deejay, the new station is allowing her to be herself. Formerly on the morning show at Jack FM, she says while she was encouraged to be out, she didn't really want that to be the focus of her on-air persona.

"(At Jack FM) I didn't want to be looked at as a lesbian, I wanted to be thought of as the talented woman on the morning show. So now I'm exactly who I am and I don't have to change pronouns, I don't have to pretend I have a boyfriend or say I went for dinner on King West last night, instead I'll say I went to Drag Idol on Church St. It's just a sense of honesty that I enjoy," she says.

"This feels like sort of an arrival. And almost a validation, it's important there's enough of us that exist to have a radio station built about taking about our issues, or gay people talking about any issues."

Basile says that "We want everyone, the core audience and our mandate is to serve, represent and be a voice for the gay audience, but it's not exclusive to the gay audience. And this is my programming philosophy for the radio station ... It's going to serve that community but it's going to be inclusive for everyone. So it won't be gay talk all the time, but it'll be a good radio station first and foremost that's going to address issues as they arise."

Ten years ago, they wouldn't have had the chance. In 1997, Toronto's FM airwaves were said to be full. Today, new engineering allows for more stations closer to each other on the dial without interference, and Basile points out that's the main reason that Proud could get a license at all. Now they'll be operating a low-power FM service, whose signal is meant to be heard from their Church St. HQ to Toronto's inner suburbs. The station's co-owner Evanov Radio Group owns several stations in the GTA as well as Halifax and Ottawa, including its flagship Z103.5 (Today's Hit Music) right next to Proud on the dial.

And once they're on the air, what will they sound like? Gay artists such as Elton John and stereotypical gay-community favourites like Madonna and Cher will be part of the Proud playlist. But Torontonians hoping to hear prominent, catchy local queer acts – the church-folkies in Hidden Cameras and the Polaris prize-winning Final Fantasy come to mind – will probably be disappointed. The current promos don't make Proud sound all that different from stations like Mix 99.9, using the so-called "hot AC" format – uptempo pop for the adult-contemporary market.

"Do we have to go `we're gay, we're gay, we're gay!' Wouldn't that be just as annoying as someone saying `we're straight, we're straight, we're straight!'" says James Collins, Proud's music director. "We all like the same music. It's not different – we might like a bit more kitschy stuff. We're a little more liberal than what the average station will play. Yes, we'll play more dancey stuff, and we're playing lots of openly gay artists and closeted gay artists, but it's just not discussed, like no one says we're playing Erasure, he's gay."

Collins says that the station will decide whether they play gay-unfriendly artists, such as ones who make homophobic statements, on a case by case basis. But Collins says that it's more important that the artist fits the sound, which he describes as upbeat and feel-good music. Enter Maggie Cassella.

The comedian is going to be in the afternoon drive slot from 3 to 7 doing an odd sort of hybrid talk show: interviews, callers, music and of course Cassella's rants, last seen on her show Because I Said So in 2002 on Star TV. She'd rather people think of her more as a loudmouth than a lesbian.

"It is what it is, and they hired me to do what I do," she says of her new gig. "To be honest, I've never had any issues since I moved to this country," said the American ex-pat. "It's never been about me being a lesbian, it's been about me being a woman who's loud and aggressive and that doesn't always work on television, but with radio, every time I check myself, they say no, no, no, don't check yourself."

For listeners, it's a chance to hear how different sexual orientations sound. Or to find out if it sounds different at all.