There are many Community Radio stations in the UK and Ireland, often run by volunteers, which are there to serve the local area in which they are based. Originally they were designed to serve an area of no wider than 5km around their transmitter, but with the introduction of the TuneIn radio app for example, these stations are now broadcasting to a worldwide audience.

As an example, Radio Wey and Meridian Radio, both in England’s south and both playing Free Spirit on a regular basis, draw their audiences from not just their local area, but also have regular listeners in the United States. The same can be said for Lisburns 98 FM, in Northern Ireland, also with regular US listeners.

With an average listening audience in the region of a 1-2 thousand (some less, some much much more), a song played on one of these stations will often…