New online directory charts 300 community radio stations worldwide

A new platform, Community Radio Index, has launched, giving listeners access to nearly 300 community radio stations from around the world.

Described as an "interactive online tool" that maps stations across a virtual globe, Community Radio Index is the result of "months of work and preparation".

The project was created by DJ and CTM co-curator Opium Hum and radio specialist Robbie Makes Radio, in collaboration with Bristol-based audiovisual artist Nov3c and DJ-turned-visual artist Lukasopp.

"To our knowledge, it’s the first centralised effort to document a majority of the world's operating online community radio stations in a single resource," the team announced.

"Community radio sits at the intersection of culture work and grassroots activism, and in a time when more and more of our cultural life is threatened by algorithmic monoculture, this work feels increasingly urgent."

Alongside internationally recognised stations such as Berlin's Refuge Worldwide, Brussels' Kiosk Radio and New York's The Lot Radio, the index also spotlights independent broadcasters across MENA-T and SWANA.

Among them are Alexandria's Ward Radio, Amman's Zawyeh Radio, Bethlehem's Radio AlHara, Beirut's Yaraka Radio and Beirut Community Radio, Dubai's Arabic By Night Radio, Sharjah's SAF Radio, Istanbul's Root Radio and Radyo Modyan, Tehran's Khonia FM, Tbilisi's Dila, Mutant Radio and Radio Electronauts, Karachi's KCR, Almaty's Rejam and Tashkent's rytmabad.

Although the platform is still being expanded, it currently features 297 stations displayed on an interactive globe that users can rotate and "zoom in to focus regions and click a country or city to open stations you can listen to instantly".

Users can browse stations by country, tune in to live broadcasts, save favourites, read background information and explore each station's social media channels.

"These stations and projects maintain spaces of artistic possibility and cultural resistance, so this is as much of a story about what independent music infrastructure looks like in 2026, as about what gets lost if these spaces aren't actively maintained," the team behind the project explain.

Looking ahead, Community Radio Index says it plans to "expand the index into a full directory of the people making it happen, the hosts, the curators, and the volunteers keeping these stations alive", while inviting users to submit stations that may have been "overlooked".

You can explore Community Radio Index and support the project with a donation here.