Start FM
Encyclopedia
Campus radio
Campus radio is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively by students, or may include programmers from the wider community in which the radio station is based...
hosted by Vilnius University
Vilnius University
Vilnius University is the oldest university in the Baltic states and one of the oldest in Eastern Europe. It is also the largest university in Lithuania....
(Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
). Broadcast launched on 94.2 FM in Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
on September 12, 2005 (webcast
Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
on January 24, 2006). The station provides freeform
Freeform
The word freeform may refer to:* Freeform , an alias used by experimental/IDM producer Simon Pyke* Freeform Style of Hardcore Techno influenced by trance.* Freeform Five, UK electro-house band...
radio programming. The radio is the only independent
Independent station
An independent station is in the category of television terminology used to describe a television station broadcasting in the United States or Canada that is not affiliated with any television network....
and non-commercial
Non-commercial
Non-commercial refers to an activity or entity that does not in some sense involve commerce, at least relative to similar activities that do have a commercial objective or emphasis...
radio station in Vilnius. Start FM studio and transmitter are in the student campus in Sauletekis alley.
History
There is little practice of the establishing university radio stations in Lithuania. 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 in October Kaunas University of TechnologyKaunas University of Technology
- KTU :Kaunas University of Technology is one of the largest technical universities in the Baltic States.In Webometrics Ranking of World Universities 2010 KTU took the highest ratings among Lithuanian higher education institutions as having the web of best presence, visibility and accessibility...
opened its academic web-radio station Gaudeamus
KTU radio Gaudeamus
KTU radio Gaudeamus is one the first university radio stations in Lithuania. It was founded at Kaunas University of Technology in 2005. Radio station is available via analogue 93,6 MHz FM frequency in Kaunas city and on the internet...
.
The station had no commercial support, was funded by the university administration and run on students' initiative. 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 2000 listeners per day, 10% of which were Internet users).
In March 2006, the broadcasts were stopped due to the lack of motivation of the staff and lack of the vision. The radio was left with one staff member only. These changes helped to focus the effort and the station was relaunched as non-commercial/independent station. On January 3, 2007 the first – after the changeover – live broadcasting Skraidantis Radijas (The Flying Radio) was launched, followed by heavy metal music
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
show Audronaša and other shows. Since March 2007, a team of 5 people is working on the radio. The main goal is to organize the Lithuanian alternative music scene. Great support was found in the members of Vilnius Hardcore and Ferrum.lt communities, independent labels
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
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 Student Government of Vilnius University, newspaper Studentų era, Institute of Journalism, student housing agency, which donates the premises for the studio.
Start FM was nominated for the "Special award of the year 2006" in the yearly Lithuanian Alternative Music Awards.