#Radio online international pro

Apart from enabling radio hosts and DJs to exercise social distancing and air shows from the comfort of their homes, online broadcasts also make building international connections easier, which has proven to be crucial in 2020. With technology becoming increasingly available, a number of stations have been able to broadcast online from various locations. The ongoing Covid pandemic only seems to have added to the growing importance and influence of online radio stations. Keeping the music alive during the pandemic “ The contemporary independent radio scene in Europe is fascinating,” finds Ola Radio’s art director Alice La Terreur, adding that online radio stations have come to form a significant part of people’s daily routine – especially in recent times. “ People who would never get a chance to present their selection on a public station have a platform to shine, and that’s only good in my perspective,” he says. They give an example of Polish scene, which doesn’t lack independent culture and activist groups, “ but they were all totally dispersed before the launch of Radio Kapitał.” The community radio turned out to be a perfect platform for bringing these groups together, and providing them with an opportunity to exchange experiences and contacts, as well as to grow their audiences.įor IDA Radio’s Robert Nikolajev, one of community radio’s crucial traits is providing an alternative to mainstream radio.

#Radio online international pro

“ Community radio gives local artists, collectives, organizations and activists all the pro of centralisation without the con of losing their independence,”they say.

The team behind Warsaw’s Radio Kapitał sums it up nicely. Still, independent radio stations’ dedication to maintaining their autonomy and non-commercial setup seem to make them a perfect outlet for uncertain times like these. Of course, running them is no easy feat – it takes a lot of hard (unpaid) work to get a community together and maintain a regular program. This reliance on a broad cultural environment, where the borders between creators and audiences are very much blurred, provides these radio stations with a certain degree of resilience compared to mainstream media. Much more than an amalgam of podcasts and curated playlists or DJ mixes, online radio, especially its community variant, inhabits a unique space – one where journalists, DJs, promoters, curators and other enthusiasts, come together to create content for a like-minded audience. Those that have been around a little longer than that – such as Dublin Digital Radio, Brussells’s Kiosk Radio, Malmö’s Retreat Radio, Kyiv’s 20ft Radio, the Tallinn-via-Helsinki IDA, Lisbon’s Rádio Quântica, Munich’s Radio 80000, Copenhagen’s The Lake Radio or Berlin’s Cashmere Radio – make for essential parts of their local scenes, as well as a bridge to what increasingly feels like a closely connected international radio landscape. If we take a look at just the past couple of years, the number of independent online radio stations that have popped up across Europe is quite impressive, from Athens’s Movement and Tbilisi’s Mutant Radio, through Bordeaux’s (now Marseille’s) Ola Radio, Leipzig’s Sphere and Warsaw’s Radio Kapitał, all the way to, say, Skopje’s recently launched Amok Radio.

Independent radio representatives share their experiences, as well as their thoughts on the present and future of online radio in Europe.Īfter years of being represented mostly by reports about the rise of podcasts, or only discussed as an alternative to the cold, automated streaming algorithms, online radios seems to finally be coming into the spotlight.

We take a closer look at online radio stations operating across Europe, their missions, their background and the connections between them.