We are going all-in on Radio Cult.
I wrote the first line of code for the Radio Cult app on February 12, 2019. One thousand, three hundred and eighty two (1382) days later, on the 25th of November 2022, I quit my job to go full time on Radio Cult.
It may surprise people to learn that Radio Cult is not UK based. Radio Cult was created for myself, Charlie — or Risko if you know me from my producing days. Growing up on the other side of the world, in New Zealand, I always found it extremely difficult to find and listen to the type of music I liked.
The first version of Radio Cult was a barebones app that let me listen to my favourite stations — Deja, Mode, Pyro, Balamii and more. The Radio Cult beta was released in mid-2019 and feedback from users quickly led to the app growing in scope. More features, more stations, more everything. Over the next four years the number of users, features and stations has only kept growing.
There aren’t many apps like Radio Cult. At least, not ones that are committed to community radio. The other aggregators focus purely on the big stations and lose sight of the enormous talent, creativity and hard work of the smaller stations.
The effort put in by the community that surrounds smaller stations is breathtaking in its scope. Day in, day out, stations curate their streams. With a fraction of the manpower of a larger establishment, community radio stations consistently punch above their weight.
You may ask what drives these community radio stations. It’s the same drive that made me wake up early Saturday mornings to catch the late night shows from stations in the UK. The same drive that makes fans jump in the chat room every Friday night. The same reason that caused me to sit outside of a friend’s birthday for an hour, just so I could hear one of my tracks play for the first time on Rinse FM. The same passion that caused people to illegally broadcast out of tower blocks.
It’s that same drive that led me to leave my job to work full time on Radio Cult. Joined by my brother, we are putting everything we have behind Radio Cult. We have spent the last 4 months incorporating as a company and building out an exciting range of new features that will be released shortly.
Working on Radio Cult has been a labour of love these past (almost) four years. However, the app needs more. Going full time enables us to put in the effort that the app, users and stations deserve. We need to keep pushing, to host the full spectrum of community radio stations. We want to bring what we have brought for fans of UK music to all genres.
The app has been almost entirely a solo journey since its inception. The app’s biggest believer, Misbah, did all the amazing graphics for the app and helped get in touch with early stations. However, the app now deserves, and needs, something more. It’s never going to get where it needs to with part-time effort.
With the move from radio to the internet, platforms were created everywhere for mainstream music fans. We believe that there is a lack of serious platforms for community radio stations. Our mission going forward is to keep pushing the community radio station, building platforms that let them continue to punch above their weight class.
As always, keep it locked.