Start FM
Start FM is a campus radio station hosted by Vilnius University (Lithuania). Broadcast launched on 94.2 FM in Vilnius in Sep 12, 2005 (webcast in Jan 24, 2006). Freeform radio programming.
History
There is quite little practice of the establishing university radio stations in Lithuania. Those few who tried to establish a radio station of any kind in corporation with an academic institution ended up pretty soon – some of them on the level of nice talk, the others burned out in a couple of weeks or months of broadcasting.
Vilnius University radio Start FM – which started broadcasting on 12 September 2005 across Vilnius on 94.2FM and worldwide via the Internet on 24 January 2006 - might be considered the first successful university radio station in Lithuania.
Same year October month Kaunas University of Technology opened its academic web-radio station Gaudeamus. On 15 November 2006 Baltupiai School started regular broadcasts on Baltupiai Radio, covering Vilnius on 98.8 FM.
Vilnius university radio station Start FM might be considered the first successful university radio station in Lithuania. The studios lie in Sauletekis alley, in the campus Kamchatka and transmitter is hoisted on a 55m height student’s house in New York campus.
The Past
Start FM is an independent - non-commercial/alternative rock radio station, the idea of which was realized with no commercial support except for the university administration funding and on student’s initiative only. It had 32 shows at the outset, its collective consisted of more than 40 people – all of which were members of the academic community of the universities in Vilnius, it had an attainability of 100 000 listeners (with a number of 2000 listeners per day, 10% of which were Internet users).
March 2006 the broadcasts were stopped due to the lack of motivation of the staff and lack of the vision, mission and main goals. The radio ended up with one staff member only. These radical changes turned out to be useful: the vision of the radio finally arose – independence as a state of mind. This is how Vilnius university radio Start FM turned to be the first university FM radio and thus far the only radio station in Vilnius (available Lithuania-wide and worldwide via internet) broadcasting non-commercial/independent music.
The Present
Since March 2007 a team of 5 people is working on the radio. The main goal of the radio is to organize the Lithuanian alternative music scene. Great support was found in the members of Vilnius Hardcore and Ferrum.lt communities, independent labels and artists and individual radio listeners.
Other objective of the radio Start FM is to develop constant and effective contacts with the academic community of the Vilnius University. Start FM cooperates with Vilnius University Students Representative, newspaper Studentu Era, an agreement on the cooperation with the Institute of Journalism is made. A great helping hand is University of Vilnius, student housing, donating the premises for the studio.
Start FM was nominated for the “Special award of the year 2006” in the yearly Lithuanian Alternative Music Awards.
On the 3rd of January 2007 the first – after the changeover – live broadcasting Skraidantis Radijas (The Flying Radio) (by Fresh Rice Crew) was launched, followed by Audronaša – a heavy metal music show, promptly followed by other broadcasts.
External links
lt:Start FM