About
Subcity Radio (est. 1995) is a non-profit, volunteer-run freeform radio station, arts collective, and events promoter based at the University of Glasgow. Our team applications are open twice a year to the local community, and show applications are open year round.
Freeform means that contributors have complete editorial freedom; one of the station's founding principles was the lack of any prescribed playlist. We endeavour to platform as diverse a range of shows as possible, no genre or concept is off-limits.
History
The story of Subcity begins in 1993, with a Restricted Service Licence FM station named "Sweet FM" broadcasting from an unused Murano flat. In October 1995, the station became SubCity (the capitalisation and spacing has varied over the years) and in 2000 the station found a permanent home in the McIntyre building of UofG. In 2002 the station was granted a 5-year AM license, but this was quickly discontinued after it was found that the antenna interfered with university computer equipment. Since 2003 the station has broadcast online. 2023 brings the long awaited revamp of subcity.org, the latest iteration of Subcity's ever evolving web presence. Read more about the station's activities through the years on the Archive page
Personnel
Subcity is staffed entirely by volunteers, and the team tends to be made up of mostly students. Being a student is not a requirement however, and anyone is welcome to apply for a role. The team is loosely structured and non-hierarchical; the only official position is that of manager. This role is taken on by a new team member (or pair of team members) for each academic year. Our current co-managers are Ada and Hamish. There are many sub-teams within Subcity, including programmes, support, comms, tech, web, and archives. People on the team tend to gravitate towards one of these as their main area of contribution, but are free to help out with any of the other teams as they please. Most of these teams have a designated coordinator. This is someone who takes on additional responsibility to make sure that the team works effectively, and meets directly with the manager(s) to coordinate the actions of each team towards common goals. When Subcity is organising an event everyone in the team is encouraged to pitch in. This means that there is no distinct events team.
The station has over 80 contributors; these are the people that run the shows broadcast on Subcity. Many of these contributors are also team members. Some people start out as a contributor, then join the team. Many ex-team members continue to play a show on Subcity, some remain contributors for years after leaving the team.
Partnerships
Subcity is proud to work with independent businesses in Glasgow, as part of our broader participation in the community. We are currently supported by two local businesses; The Alchemy Experiment, a cafe and art space in the west end, and Rubadub, a music shop in the city centre. We are extremely grateful for their support, and enthusiastically recommend both of them for any of your cafe/art space or music retailer needs. We are eager to develop and maintain as many connections to Glasgow's independents as possible. If you are involved with a local retailer, venue, or other establishment, and have a desire to work with Subcity in some way, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Contact Us
You can email us at programmes@subcity.org, or DM us on Instagram @subcityradio
