Radio Utopía: live radio from San Sebastián de los Reyes

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Radio Utopía

Where demos get on the radio.

Heavy, hip-hop and jazz for bands no one else plays.

Radio Utopía has been the free radio of Madrid's northern belt since 1991, broadcasting from San Sebastián de los Reyes on 107.8 across the north of the region and up into the sierra. It belongs to a non-profit association, Radio Libre Norte, and lives on what its members pay in and what its festivals take at the door, having never sold a second of airtime. Each season runs from September to July and carries between thirty and fifty different programmes, most of them weekly, most one to three hours long.

Music is the spine of it by the station's own account, and the point is the bands nobody else will play — small and new groups get airtime and a chance to explain themselves. Rock and heavy sit next to hip-hop, electronics, classical and jazz, and Coração Lusófon works the Portuguese-speaking world. Around them run talk, humour, literature, science, children's hours and radio drama.

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San Sebastián de los Reyes, Spain

Radio Utopía

Where demos get on the radio.

Heavy, hip-hop and jazz for bands no one else plays.

Radio Utopía has been the free radio of Madrid's northern belt since 1991, broadcasting from San Sebastián de los Reyes on 107.8 across the north of the region and up into the sierra. It belongs to a non-profit association, Radio Libre Norte, and lives on what its members pay in and what its festivals take at the door, having never sold a second of airtime. Each season runs from September to July and carries between thirty and fifty different programmes, most of them weekly, most one to three hours long.

Music is the spine of it by the station's own account, and the point is the bands nobody else will play — small and new groups get airtime and a chance to explain themselves. Rock and heavy sit next to hip-hop, electronics, classical and jazz, and Coração Lusófon works the Portuguese-speaking world. Around them run talk, humour, literature, science, children's hours and radio drama.