StartFM

StartFM 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 StartFM – 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 StartFM might be considered the first successful university radio station in Lithuania. The studios lie in Sauletekis alley, in the campus Kamchatka and transmitter (20W) is hoisted on a 55m height student’s house in New York campus.

The Past

StartFM 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 StartFM turned to be the first university FM radio and thus far the only radio station in Vilnius (available Lithuania-wide and world-wide 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 StartFM is to develop constant and effective contacts with the academic community of the Vilnius University. StartFM 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.

StartFM 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.

=Shows 2007=

- Since January 3: Skraidantis Radijas ("The Flying Radio") – street culture journal (Wednesdays 20.00-22.00)

- Since January 15: Audronaša ("The Storm Bringer") – the show on the extreme metal music (Mondays 20.00-22.00)

- "Since February 6: Rūsys (The Basement) – the broadcast on young Lithuanian bands and the poetry cantabile :) [on vacation since 5 June 2007] "

- "Since February 15: Interactive Talk Show hosted by Saulius [on vacation since 20 July 2007] "

- "Since March 6: Atviras galas (The Open End) – razor-sharp feminine view on Life – riot grrrl! [on vacation since 7 May 2007] "

- Since June 17: Tirpstantys tekstai ("Thawing Texts") – for all those restless souls (Sundays 21.00-22.00)

- Since June 24: Be žodžių ("Speechless") – the instrumental music explosion (Sundays 22.00-24.00)

- Since July10: Kitas laikas ("The Different Time") – the history of the world-wide independent music by Domantas Razauskas (Tuesdays 19.00-20.00)

=External links=
* [http://www.startfm.lt/en/ Official Homepage]
* [http://www.startfm.lt/startfm.m3u MP3 stream (128kbit/s)]
* [http://www.radom.lt Domantas Razauskas]