On 12 September, we announced the radio section and added that the first stations would be added as soon as we’d found any. Then the section sat there pretty much empty for a while. That’s now a thing of the past: under ‘Radio’, there are fourteen stations from six countries.
Who’s on now
Germany is represented by five. PRIDE1 from Hamburg has been broadcasting since 2006 – ad-free and non-profit – with a team of volunteers and a presenter-led programme. GayFM from Berlin has been playing dance, house and club hits round the clock since 2004. Alongside these are two programmes from independent radio stations that are older than most of the apps on your phone: ‘Die Schwule Welle’ on Radio Dreyeckland in Freiburg, which has been on air since 1988, making it the oldest programme of its kind still running in Germany, and ‘Rosarauschen’ on Querfunk in Karlsruhe, which has been broadcasting continuously since 1995.
And then there’s NDWRadio.de from Dettingen an der Erms: an amateur station dedicated to the Neue Deutsche Welle and 1980s German pop, well-known classics and plenty of tracks you haven’t heard in years. It has nothing to do with queer radio, yet it’s still on the list because it goes down well here – particularly with members over fifty. The rest of the list is, after all, pretty much all about dance, house and club music, and that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea for a whole afternoon.
On that note, a disclosure before anyone else does: we run NDWRadio.de ourselves. To be more precise, it’s the private hobby of the same person who also runs DaddyBoy – two things that have nothing to do with each other, apart from the fact that they meet here. This doesn’t change anything for you, except that, for once, when you play a track, your IP address will end up at a station you’re already familiar with. It won’t be linked to your account there either.
From Switzerland comes QUEER RADIO from Zurich – a German-language station playing dance and house music, with news and event tips from the scene.
The Netherlands is providing three stations: Pidi Radio from Amsterdam, featuring Pride hits and queer classics – also available via DAB+ in Amsterdam; Gay Radio Nederland, playing Dutch hits and classics during the day and dance and disco in the evenings; and Pride.Radio, the new project with the slogan ‘Be Pride – Be Radio’.
From the UK, GlitterBeam and Pride Radio NRG are taking part. GlitterBeam is run on a voluntary basis from Gravesend, with the motto “Music with Sparkle”, and has been available via DAB in several regions since 2021. Pride Radio NRG is the dance channel from Pride World Media in Newcastle, which was named Community Station of the Year in 2021.
Spain is represented by Queer Uno Radio from Madrid, featuring queer dance and electronic music, and Gaymas from Maspalomas on Gran Canaria – house, tech house and tribal, essentially the island’s soundtrack. From France, GayRadio.fr is taking part, playing the latest pop hits and taking music requests.
Two of these are programmes, not continuous loops
A quick note so you aren’t disappointed: Die Schwule Welle and Rosarauschen have fixed broadcast times – Thursday evenings and Friday evenings respectively, each with a repeat. If you tap ‘Play’ at any other time, you’ll hear the regular programme of the independent radio station hosting the show. That’s not a fault – that’s independent radio. The times are listed in the description for each of the two stations.
Why we didn’t ask for permission beforehand
Back in September, we stated here that we would ask every station for permission before featuring them. We’ve since gone back on that promise, and it’s only right to say so rather than change it without explanation.
The reason: we don’t embed anything that would require permission. We link to a station’s public stream, and your browser retrieves it directly from there – it doesn’t run through our site. There’s no cache, no recording, no playlist. We don’t skip adverts or announcements, we don’t bypass access restrictions, and every broadcaster is listed on our site by name with a link to their own website. It’s exactly the same as when you type the stream’s address into your music player – only more convenient.
Asking for permission would have meant waiting weeks for replies that, in the case of many small, volunteer-run stations, would never have come. What remains is a promise the other way round: if a station doesn’t want to be included, it’s removed the very same day. No discussion, no need to give a reason. The same applies to the logos – we display them unaltered for identification purposes, and they’ll be removed on request.
What the broadcaster can see about you
Because the stream comes directly from there, the broadcaster sees your IP address and your browser the moment you start playing a track. Nothing more: no account, no username, no profile, nothing to indicate that you’re currently on our site. As long as you’re not playing anything, they won’t find out a thing. This is also stated on the transparency page under ‘External Services’ and in section 5 of the privacy policy.
Incidentally, if the artist and track title appear in the bar, they don’t come from you: our server retrieves this information for the current station every few seconds, and the station only sees us in the process.
And one more important thing: when you’re out and about, streaming uses up your mobile data allowance. A few hours of radio on the mobile network really do add up.
How to use it
Tap the green button to start the station. The narrow bar at the bottom keeps playing whilst you’re scrolling through profiles or chatting – it’s not part of the page but sits on top of it, so nothing cuts out when you switch pages. On your phone, you can change the station directly from the bar. Pressing Esc twice stops the stream immediately, just like using the quick-hide option via the icon: if you’re leaving the page in a hurry, you won’t suddenly have club music blaring in your room.
Suggest a station
The list isn’t complete. If you know of a queer radio station that’s missing – including ones from countries not listed above – please let us know. We’re particularly on the lookout for anything that isn’t dance music: Schlager, chanson, rock, oldies, country – queer or not, as long as it’s a good fit for someone here. You can reach us via Help & Contact; the ‘Report an error’ button is at the very bottom of every page, and under Account › My enquiries you can see what’s become of it. We just need the name; we’ll sort out the rest.
