User:Tdwright/Radio Free Brighton

Radio Free Brighton is an internet based community radio station broadcasting from Brighton and run entirely by volunteers. Founded in mid 2009, the station was originally located in Under the Bridge Studios on Beaconsfield Rd. In April 2010, the studio and station moved to larger premises on Trafalgar Arches (underneath Brighton station) with improved facilities. Currently broadcasting 24 hours a day, listeners can use the widget on the Radio Free Brighton homepage to tune in.

Programming
The founding principal of Radio Free Brighton was foster communication between members of the community. Consequently, the majority of our shows are talk-based rather than music based. We also have a strong focus on shows in languages other than English in order to reflect the diversity of Brighton. In a similar vein, Radio Free Brighton is inclusive and emphasises passion over perfection: the quality of the material is more important than the quality of the production.

Shows on Radio Free Brighton include: As well as a daily news show at 6pm.
 * Amnesty International Show
 * Brighton Punk Project
 * Cal­lum and Rich Maths and Music
 * Jonathan Jae­ger — con­ver­sa­tions on con­tem­por­ary topics
 * Learn­ing Mat­ters with Prof. Ian Cunningham
 * Monika and Friends Hun­garian Show — chat, news and views in Hungarian
 * New World Notes
 * The Jazz Pro­gramme with Niall Brennan

Internet based
The decision to broadcast on the internet only was initially an economic one: licensing the broadcast rights is expensive. Later on however, the decision to remain internet only was aided by an ideological view and a two practical considerations:
 * Conceptually, radio is an old technology. The decision to remain available solely on the internet is vote of confidence in new technology and signals the belief of Radio Free Brighton's committee that the internet has come of age.
 * Practically:
 * Broadcast radio (in the UK) is in a transitional period between FM and DAB. Now does not appear to be the time to invest in any one particular technology.
 * Broadcast radio sets a geographic limit. It was decided that Radio Free Brighton should serve the Brighton community regardless of whether they are currently in Brighton.

These considerations were set against the chief downside: that of reduced access to certain groups. These groups consist primarily of the elderly (who use the internet demonstrably less) and those on the move (drivers etc.).

Technical
Radio Free Brighton relies heavily on open-source software. Core technologies used include Liquidsoap and Icecast running on an Ubuntu Linux server. Also used on this server are Apache, MySQL, PHP, Wordpress, PHPBB and Mediawiki. The core server is a VPS hosted by Slicehost. The rest of their computing stock are former PCs that have been donated and refitted.

In June 2011, Radio Free Brighton was one of 6 finalists for a Community Voices Award in the in the Technology4Good Awards 2011.