Operating in a street-level studio on First Avenue in New York, East Village Radio (www.eastvillageradio.com) is an FM-to-Internet conversion story. Kicked off the air by the FCC for broadcasting on an unlicensed frequency, EVR took its act(s) into IP delivery.
Resembling a college station but with even more eclecticism, EVR presents an always-on schedule of two-hour shows hosted by individual and paired DJs. The programming is mostly musical, but includes straight talk and music & interview mixes. (Some shows are repeated during the week, so if you have DJ skills and live in the city, you might find receptivity to your pitch.) We have a weakness for Guilty Pleasure, which features indie pop on Mondays from 8-10pm.
The great beauty of East Village Radio is its library. Each show is archived. Some of these archives go back for years. There is a deep well from which to drink when you find your favorites. (Guilty Pleasure, has over four years of shows on the shelf.) Program playlists are archived also — another link to the college-radio ethos which seems to infuse the EVR experience.
Here at the RAIN editorial office, we confess to an unabashed love for East Village Radio. It embodies the renegade spirit of grass-roots broadcasting which might get new wind with the FCC expansion of LPFM (Low Power FM). Wide-ranging, personality-driven, local, and adventurous, East Village Radio brings primal values of broadcasting to the pureplay realm.
EVR is distributed via Android and iOS apps, in addition to the desktop website.