Radio Varese revives thanks to the web

 This is news that will make happy lots of nostalgic people. The three monkeys of Radio Varese return, and this thanks to the web. The broadcasts of the heirs of the Radio that trained dozens of journalists, performers and characters of Varese come back to broadcast at the address www.radiovareseweb.org . Its full speed return, with a rich show schedule made of music, news and entertainment,  is expected for next autumn 2014.

On the agenda, there is an event to present the new radio course, to celebrate its rebirth, a happy hour for the public on Sunday 18 May at 7 p.m. at Twiggy Café in via De Cristoforis n.5 in Varese. The event, in which some of the historic speakers and the new hosts will take part, will be also aimed at raising money for the radio thanks to the membership and the broad donations by the listeners.

Radio Varese was born in 1976, at the end of the 80s it broadcasted on short waves (FM) in the frequency 100.700.  It was the first free broadcasting station and, for one of the few times in the history of this city, it was in line with the times if not also a “pioneer” for the time. In its show schedule there was a lot of music and a lot of good music, in times when it was difficult to listen to it elsewhere. There were the news section, the sport events, and also politics. There were also microphones open to listeners when a few of them wanted to listen. But the most valuable thing was the fact that it could create a strong and sincere relationship with the increasingly numerous audience of listeners. The story of Radio Varese “ via ether ” ended in October 1990, when Lega Lombarda bought the frequencies of the broadcasting station, and in its place Radio Padana was born.

The years of Radio Varese are narrated in a book, “Radio Varese 100.700. The only free radio of the occupied west.” The volume was written by a group of former presenters of Radio Varese and it was published in 2002. It contains lots of experiences of its founders among who there is Roberto Maroni, the current president of Regione Lombardia, and Massimo Donelli, the personality of Telegiornale Regionale of Lombardia.

In 2012, Tiziana Schiavoni, one of the memorable voices of the radio and a student in Communication Science at the Insubria University in Varese, was searching for some testimonies for her graduation thesis “Radio Varese on the web, a feasibility study between the epic and the hypothetical,” and in this way she reconnected the experience of the radio to the book’s one, and she rekindled the enthusiasm  of a group of former presenters who had imagined again to be able to make the memorable Radio Varese revive. The result of the study was that Radio Varese Web was a possible project and within a shortly after an association of social promotion, to which the new newsroom and the web broadcasting station led, was built. The association is composed partly of some formers presenters of Radio Varese, but the majority of the members is composed of a new group of young people between 20 and 35. An exciting and essential generation mix, to communicate with the new net languages but also not to forget and exclude that “free radio” attitude that marked the story of Radio Varese.

The headquarters, from which the radio will broadcast, were not chosen by chance, since it is in the Coopuf in via De Cristoforis in Biumo, not so far from the historic headquarters in via Walder, where Radio Varese was born in 1976.