Down at the left end of the dial, sprinkled among the non-commercial religious and public radio stations, is where you find the last bastions of good radio with the most subversive sounds on the radio.

That is the domain of college radio -- where students and community DJs often play (and say) anything, and with it's focus on the local and the offbeat, college radio is a great place for local bands to get airplay.

Sadly, many of these 100-watt gems are rarely heard beyond the walls of the schools which house and fund the stations, but with the rise of web-based streaming audio, college radio is seeing a resurgence in recent years.  I find this to be of great importance to indie labeled and unsigned bands and musicians.  These stations are often where tomorrow's success stories get their starts today.

College Radio is also the inspiration for SonicJive Radio.  What we are doing, essentially, is creating "college radio" for the masses  -- a place to showcase indie music and free form programing on a world-wide basis.

Two key words -- LISTENER SUPPORTED - define the common theme amongst most college radio stations.  In effect, it means that the stations depend upon donations and underwriting from local businesses to stay afloat and to keep programing fresh and original.   Commercial sponsorship, the theory goes, dictates that college stations be forced into more mainstream play lists and less room for the indie bands.

Can this be changed? Of course it can.  We have to stop thinking of independent music as "local" and realize music is a global form of communication.  Why can't a band that has saturated it's popularity in Grand Rapids, MI for instance, find popularity  in Bakersfield, CA or Ithaca, NY?  In the past it was because mainstream FM radio has been too restrictive to play good, independent music and local stations could not generate  an audience that went beyond it's local borders.

I say, if you don't like the rules, then change them.  You can tune in to SonicJive Radio when it launches from any single spot in the world where you have a computer and an internet connection. Internet radio, is in fact, borderless - open to listeners from anywhere who want to tune in to good programing and better music.  Do you really want to subject yourself to a lifetime of pre-programmed music or as I call it death by rotation and clocked programing (news and traffic every fifteen minutes, commercials every ten minutes, endless plugs and less and less music, with singles and select cuts placed into heavy, monotonous rotation)?

I am betting that is exactly what you don't want and in another case of history repeating itself, FM Radio is becoming exactly what AM Radio was in the days leading up to its virtual death.

You see, college radio has the right idea.  SonicJive Radio wants to expound on that globally.  I praise college radio for defining the outline with which SonicJive Radio will be programed.  You are all welcome to listen and here's hoping you will.  Change is refreshing.  Change is good. See you when we launch the radio player on September 8th, and here's hoping you will tune in to our radio revolution.

Musically Yours,

Mike