LOHROLOHRO

The name is an acronym — Lokalradio der Hansestadt Rostock — and it has run a full service round the clock, seven days a week, since 1 July 2005. Two associations carry it: Kulturnetzwerk holds the licence, a Förderverein takes the donations, and the studios sit on the third floor of the FRIEDA 23 on Friedrichstraße. It goes out on 90.2 and on DAB+ across the region. More than thirty word and music desks share the schedule, staffed by people from ten years old to eighty, out of every trade and country the city holds.

Music here is not filler between talk and ad breaks, the station insists: it gets celebrated, argued over and placed in its context. Weekday mornings go to the Weckruf magazine, and the evenings to the specialists, from Jazz & Blues and Cup of Soul to Rockzone, Pogomania, Nighttraxx and the Friday-night Bass Channel. It calls its own sound charmingly unpolished.