LGBTQ radio

On December 1, 1993, Joy Melbourne 90.7, a volunteer-run gay and lesbian station, began broadcasting in Melbourne. The station was the country's first LGBTQ radio station.^[1][2]

In Canada, the rise of LGBTQ radio programs occurred alongside the expansion of community radio, with the first community radio stations launching in 1974.^[3] 482

On August 9, 1978, Gay News and Views made its debut on CKMS-FM, a community radio station run by the University of Waterloo. The program, the "first regularly scheduled gay radio program in Canada", was produced by the Kitchener-Waterloo Gay Media Collective. In September 1978, Vancouver saw its first gay radio program with Coming Out, broadcast on Vancouver Co-operative Radio (CFRO-FM). In June 1979, the Lesbian Show debuted on CFRO-FM, becoming the country's first lesbian radio program.^[4] According to a co-founder of the Lesbian Show, Silva Tenenbein, the show grew out of tensions within the "male-dominated" Coming Out program and larger tensions within the Canadian feminist community.^[3]

By the mid-1990s, CITR-FM in Vancouver was broadcasting the program Queer FM.^[2]

In April 2007, Proud FM was launched in Toronto, becoming the country's "first mainstream, commercial station" for an LGBTQ audience.^[5]

Radio Rosa launched in Copenhagen on 22 June 1983, with the backing of the Danish National Association of Gays and Lesbians. The station closed in 2010.

Clandestine radio broadcasts by lesbians occurred as early as 1978, by the group Les Radioteuses, who were shut down following their first broadcast. The group reorganized as Radio Nanas, and legally in 1981 as Les Nanas Radioteuses.^[6]

The early 1980s saw a number of gay and lesbian radio programs in France as state control of radio officially ended.^[6] The lesbian radio collective Femmes Entre Elles (Canal Gay Radio Savane, Rennes) produced multiple lesbian programs, as did the broadcasting collective Les Jardins de Selene (Amiens); other collectives also existed in Marseille and Paris.^[6]

The Parisian free radio station Fréquence Gaie was launched in 1981; in 1982, it became the "world's first 24-hour gay radio program".^[7][6] Originally aimed primarily at gay men, programs produced by and for lesbians began to increase under the leadership of station president Genevieve Pastre, elected in June 1982. In early 1983, the station was rated fourth in the city in a public opinion survey. Due to financial troubles, the station floundered, and its LGBTQ audience had largely left by 1985.^[6]

By 1983, stations broadcasting gay and lesbian programming, called "antennes roses" (English: "Pink stations") existed in at least 27 French towns and cities; by 1984, there were between 36 and 50.^[6] In 1984, the first International Meeting of Male and Female Hosts of Homosexual Broadcasts in France was held.^[6]

In August 1985, the twice-weekly LGBTQ program Eldoradio began airing on the Berlin Cable Network. Named after Eldorado, a gay bar in Berlin during the 1920s, the two-hour program had "music, jokes, and self-produced radio plays" during the Sunday time slot, with Wednesday's program focusing on news and reporting. By the end of the year, Eldoradio had joined Radio 100, a "consort of alternative media groups" from Berlin. The show ended in 1989, due to financial troubles, including lack of advertisers.^[2]

In July 2017, India's self-proclaimed "first LGBTQ radio show", titled Gaydio, launched. The show was a two-hour weekly program, broadcast in Mumbai and two other cities.^[8]

In October 2012, Radio Ranginkaman launched as a 30-minute program for the LGBTQ community.^[9] Since then, it has grown into its own station, and broadcasts on shortwave, satellite and online radio.^[9][10] It broadcasts in both Dari and Persian.

Malta has a DAB station which broadcasts GlitterBeam, an LGBTQ station based in the United Kingdom.

Namibian LGBTQ organization The Rainbow Project has broadcast the radio show Talking Pink since 1999.^[11][12]

In the 1980s, Wellington Access Radio hosted multiple lesbian radio programs. The first of these was Leave the Dishes in the Sink, a feminist program which included some lesbians. In 1984, several lesbians developed an hour-long program, which aired once a month as part of the Womanzone feminist radio collective. In October 1984, the Lesbian Community Radio Programme (LCRP) was established. The weekly show had a variety of content, including news, poetry, educational segments, and updates on local events.^[13]

By 2007, In the Pink was broadcast on Bush Radio in Cape Town, being the country's "only gay radio program".^[14] As of 2016, GaySAradio, based in Pretoria, was the country's only LGBTQ radio station.^[15]

In 2018, Shams Rad was founded in the country's capital,Tunis; the station is the self-proclaimed "only gay radio station" in the Arab world. The station airs music and programs discussing LGBTQ issues, but presenters do not "identify themselves as sexually active on air" due to laws in Tunisia that criminalize homosexuality. The station is partially funded by the Dutch embassy.^[16]

Station director Bouhdid Belhedi has reported receiving death threats for his part in the station.^[16]

In 1982, the community radio program Gaywaves began broadcast on a pirate station Our Radio in London. The two-hour program aired weekly on Wednesday nights. Although the show tried to include some lesbian programming, the program was mostly listened to by gay men, with programming shifting to reflect that. Segments included interviews, news, and skits. Program organizers also tried to incorporate material on the lives of gay men and lesbians outside the U.K.^[7]

The 1990s saw an increased number of gay and lesbian radio programs.

In 1956, Pacifica Radio became the first known listener-sponsored non-commercial American radio network to allow openly LGBTQ individuals airtime.^[20]

Lesbian radio projects primarily grew out of the feminist movement and its forays into radio.^[21][22] One of the nation's earliest LGBTQ radio programs was Lesbian Nation (1972-1973), an interview show created by Martha Shelley, a member of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Gay Liberation Front.^[23]

The 2000s saw a rise in LGBTQ radio programming in a corporate context. Clear Channel Radio launched a number of subcarrier stations for their Pride Radio in 2006 and 2007, including in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco.^[5]

LGBTQ radio programming has been part of internet radio since the 1990s, with stations such as PNN Gay Radio^[5] and GLO Radio (later rebranded GayBC), both of which were founded in 1997.^[36] The number of internet radio stations targeted towards the LGBTQ community continued to increase in the early 2000s.^[5][37]

Internet radio offers the advantage of sidestepping regulations, as stations are not subject to content rules made by regulating bodies such as the FCC (in the United States).^[36] Another advantage is that unlike traditional radio, which is limited by distance, internet radio is limited only by an internet connection. This can allow LGBTQ listeners without local LGBTQ radio programming to still access the media.^[36]