Thoughts

The First Time We Heard Ourselves On Air

Written by Rik ArronDO Radio

There’s a moment you never forget.

The first time you hear your own station coming through the speakers.

Not a test file. Not a scrappy rehearsal. But a real broadcast. Out there. In the world.

For months, Do Radio existed only in our heads and in our meetings.

It was a dream scrawled in individual notebooks, a collection of Google Docs, a Notion board, a few pilot episodes, and a lot of airtime to fill.

We believed in it. But it wasn’t real, yet.

And then, one morning, a few weeks ago, September 1st 2025, we pressed play.

We were all in different places. Different houses, different countries. But at the same time, we all tuned in.

And there it was.

Our little station that wasn’t supposed to exist…suddenly existed.

It’s hard to explain what that feels like.

It wasn’t perfect at launch. But it had heart. It had warmth. It had a very DO vibe about it.

We sat there listening like kids with a secret. Checking in with each other on WhatsApp. “Can you hear it?” “Is it working?” “Bloody hell, it’s working.”

For a second, the world stopped being cynical. The doubts, the spreadsheets, the nagging voices that said what’s the point of building a radio station in 2025? All of that went quiet.

Because here it was. Alive.

That first on-air moment is something no algorithm can measure. You can’t A/B test it. You can’t fit it neatly into a business model.

It’s a surge of energy. A private experiment turned public.

A dream leaping the gap into reality.

Perhaps, that’s the point.

Radio has always been about connection, but it starts with the connection you feel yourself.

The electricity of making something real, together, against the odds.

Since then, we’ve kept building, kept honing, ironing out some inevitable start-up creases.

We’ve got a lot of work still to do, a lot of lessons still to learn.

But nothing will ever replace that first time we heard ourselves.

Our signal.

Do Radio.

And if you’ve ever had that moment, when something that only lived in your imagination finally spoke back to you, then you know what I’m talking about.

That’s why we’re doing this.

To keep chasing that spark. To keep sharing it. To keep proving that in a noisy world, there’s still room for voices that make you feel less alone.

Written by
Rik Arron
Founder of The Buzz Radio and DO Radio | DO Radio Guest, Miracles Happen Here with Cat Preston
I am the Co-Founder of The Buzz Radio and, now, DO Radio. I have a long history with radio, and a deep passion for it, and the power it still has as a medium. My drive is to help re-invent radio and restore it back to its rightful place in the homes and hearts of people and communities. I am very excited by the prospect of what DO Radio can become. How the beautiful, diverse, and powerful conversations we’re creating can help to bring people t...

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