Hot on the heels of the independent radio station Capital Radio 604 broadcasting from the Transkei, which due to technical problems had failed in its bid to serve the lucrative multi-racial audience in the urban areas of South Africa's old southern Transvaal province, Channel 702 was started in 1980 by entrepreneurs Natie and Issie Kirsh in the country's homeland of Bophuthatswana, which like the Transkei was at the time independent of South African rules and regulations. The station's signature line was "In touch, in tune and independent."