'Powered by Players' - since 2004
birn1
Powered by Players: Live student radio from Berklee College of Music. All styles, all hours.

birn learn
Concerts, clinics, interviews and special events from Berklee faculty, staff and visiting artists. Learn from the industry's finest.

birnCORE
BIRN Cooperative Recordings: Exclusive interviews and live performances from emerging artists and music legends.

air alumni
The finest music from Berklee alumni around the world, from multi-platinum Grammy-winners to the newest up-and-comers.

birn global
The sound of diversity: Music and more from Berklee International Network partners worldwide.


The Berklee Internet Radio Network is a project of the Berklee College of Music and is designed, operated, and maintained by the Berklee community of students, faculty, and staff. We are a commercial-free internet radio station broadcasting around the clock on five unique channels.

We are a Noncommercial Educational Entity (NEE). More info is provided at http://www.soundexchange.com

All of our DJs are musicians, bringing a unique perspective to both our playlists and commentary. The student group involved in operating the station meets weekly. All Berklee students are welcome at General Meetings. Student members may also elect to take the one-credit, MTEC-200 class, Berklee Internet Radio Workshop, held concurrently with the General Meeting.

Programming

Our DJs have complete creative control of content. We are a College Music Journal-reporting station.
BIRN accepts new music submissions. See the info on our Submissions page.

History

1998-2001: The Webheads Student Club develops a proposal for the college to consider internet radio. The proposal is not approved.

October 2003: The group is reestablished under the new moniker, “Internet Radio Club.” With fresh membership, a new approach is planned.

2004: Takeshi Furakawa ‘04 makes the first website for WBIR (an early name of the station). Two public demonstrations in F12 and 118 help to spark student interest. A large group of students join the effort and the first radio programs are pre-recorded for broadcast. The college approves Internet Radio Workshop course for students to get academic credit for working on the BIRN. We begin broadcasting 30 dorm room-produced, prerecorded shows using iTunes in shuffle mode on a borrowed Mac while awaiting equipment and facilities. But we can’t be heard outside the college firewall. Or by listeners using iTunes. OK, a few problems to work on…

2005: Berklee students, alumni and faculty submit ideas for station names. Nine finalists are chosen and “BIRN” wins a popular vote. We begin promoting the station to Berklee students in a “soft launch” party, but not yet to the public. Pizza is consumed but a listenership is not established. Our bluff is called… We begin scheduled broadcasting, with 21 DJs and 42 hours of original content each week. All programming is prerecorded but can now be heard outside the college. The college finds space and plans construction for the station studios.

February 20, 2006: The BIRN opens its first facility in the 270 Comm. Ave. dorm building. Two studios for broadcast and production are equipped and DJ training begins.

2006: BIRN becomes a CMJ-reporting station. Technical and organizational issues keep the station from producing reliable broadcast or launching as planned. A small, re-organized group reconfigures and stabilizes the studios; live broadcast experiments are highly successful. At last, the student DJs produce 60 hours per week of live broadcast from the studios - including a nightly one hour news program and 25 individual shows; a rebroadcasting scheme keeps these shows on the air 24 hours/day; the long-awaited additional three channels are successfully launched - Special Events, Air Alumni, and Setlist; first interviews are conducted and recorded with Marcus Miller and Kaki King, scheduled for airing on birn2 in the spring.

Spring, 2007: the group membership swells to 55; senior DJs train new DJs; weekend and late night broadcasts get new shows; promotions planning can begin in earnest…

April 30th - May 4th, 2007: BIRN LAUNCH WEEK: Three page feature in The Groove leads the way; a Berklee press release is picked up everywhere: interviews, articles and pictures in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Phoenix, El Planeta, Improper Bostonian; web articles on Downbeat.com, Modern Drummer.com, Wired.com, Harmonycentral.com, Digg.com and dozens more; NPR interview on Future Tense; birn2 broadcasts clinics, concerts, and interviews with Marcus Miller, Stanley Crouch, Thomas Dolby, Kaki King, the Yellowjackets, Richard Devine, Terri Lynne Carrington, and Greg Osby. BIRN Street Team stretches out all over Boston and the campus with posters, flyers, stickers, decals, and guitar picks. Two full days of on campus promotions announce that the BIRN has arrived. Following the launch, BIRN membership swells and a large group of new DJs join the station. Broadcasting expands and the listenership grows. Membership and participation doubles! Programming stretches from 10am to 3am daily and dozens of new shows are added. The station produces its first college-wide event, hosting legendary guitarist, Robby Krieger of the Doors at the BPC. The BIRN wraps up its fourth semester of live broadcast and the station’s website logs 1.5 million hits in calendar year 2007. Construction begins on a four room broadcast facility expected to open in February of 2008.

2008: Membership and participation continues to increase and we get 85 members! Programming stretches from 10am to 3am daily and dozens of new shows are added. We have to move our meeting place three times in the first three weeks to fit everyone in. The semester is spent developing more new shows and perfecting on-campus promotions (lots of posters put up and rotated daily). We manage to distribute a few thousand stickers and guitar picks and several hundred frisbees. BIRN DJs become MCs for most of the college concerts, starting in the fall, including Singer Showcase (2), International Festival, New Music Festival, and more. But most of us will remember the agonizing wait for our new studios to be completed… And many of our longest lasting DJs graduate and wave farewell. The BIRN finishes its second full year on the air with a flourish as six senior DJs MC the Commencement Concert with Steve Winwood, Philip Bailey, Rosa Pasos, and Howard Shore.

2013: The BIRN continues its mission of World Domination with a newly rebranded five-channel lineup accessible anywhere through our website, iTunes, the Berklee mobile app, and TuneIn Radio.