We're very excited here because next year we will be going on the air full-time having been awarded a Community Radio licence by the regulator OFCOM. This means you'll be able to listen to us 24 hours a day, every day, all year round.

We are pulling together our final plans, raising money, creating partnerships and finding a place to build some new studios in the University's Media Centre. If all goes to plan Utopia will be all over your radio early in 2009.

But will it be different?
No. The basic sound and nature of the station will still be the same. We'll still support new music and more importantly local music. In fact, being on air full time means we can do this more. But we'll also continue to widen our sound to include more people from outside the University. They'll still be young and still make shows for Utopia but just talk about the things that really matter to them.

So, it will sound the same but with more voices, more diversity and much more variety.

Can I get involved?
We hope so. They'll be lots of ways to join Utopia. All students at the University can join us and become a full member straight away. We're also hoping to work with schools, youth projects and other community groups to train people across the City how to make radio and help them become members. We're also looking into the possibility of Summer Schools as well!

Our plan is to start small and slowly build our volunteer base, so we can manage or growth and ensure everyone gets the traning and support they need. Our hope is that one day we'll work with as many young people in the City as we can

We'll also launch a new category of membership that will allow you to support us, without having to be a full broadcasting member

How will the station fund itself?

Unfortunately the station will have to find money to keep it on the air and we can find that in a number of places. We can apply for grants to support the station or to run projects in the community and we can sell a certain amount of advertising.

So, if you're grant awarding body or a group looking for partners in a funded project then come and talk to us. Radio is a great tool in developing social cohesion and making radio is an excellent way to develop technical and communication skills. So whether you're a school, a youth group or a community project there are 101 ways we could work together... and we really want to. We want to be part of the City, not just because we want people to listen but because we believe we can help make a difference

Where will I be able to hear you?

We're in the final stages now of identifying our transmission site, once this is done we can formally request a frequency from OFCOM. If this works well then you should be able to hear us clearly over the entire City of Sunderland, although if you're slightly further afield like Houghton, Washington and Whitburn it might be fuzzy or just not there at all. We're only able to cover a fairly small area, which means we're very local to where you are.

We also hope to broadcast all of our programmes online as well.

got a question? want to get involved? Get in touch with us

By email: community.radio@sunderland.ac.uk
by phone: 0191 515 2239