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Vienna's free radio in 25 languages, half music, half mouth.
The Verein Freies Radio Wien came together in the early 1990s out of the pirate stations that had sprung up against the ORF's monopoly on Austrian radio, and got its opening when a European Court ruling broke that monopoly in 1993. Four more years passed before the licence came through in 1997. The name did not survive it: ORF already had a Radio Wien and objected, so the founders picked something nobody could claim — orange, nonsensical and memorable — and went on air on 17 August 1998.
Several hundred mostly unpaid people make well over a hundred series, drawn from activism, academia, art and Vienna's migrant communities, with feminist and queer programming a standing part of the week rather than a slot on it. Vienna has covered the baseline costs since 2004, after federal money stopped in 2001. The studio has been in Brigittenau since 2005.
The city talks back.
