Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio (VCR) is a music and spo­ken word inter­net radio sta­tion, aimed at com­mu­ni­ties in vir­tu­al worlds, notably Sec­ond Life, as well as lis­ten­ers on the wider inter­net. The sta­tion was found­ed in ear­ly 2021 by DJ and co-host of the Design­ing Worlds TV series, Elrik Merlin.

VCR is under­scored by a 24/7 “sus­tain­ing music ser­vice” based pri­mar­i­ly around Light Clas­si­cal music, with a lit­tle Easy Lis­ten­ing, Clas­si­cal and Ear­ly Music thrown in. On top of this is a grow­ing ros­ter of spo­ken-word pro­gram­ming that includes dra­ma, read­ings and talk shows and forms the pri­ma­ry focus of the station.

The sched­ule includes a month­ly show on musi­cal the­atre, “The Mag­ic of The Musi­cal”, host­ed by Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er of the Sean­chai Library, where Cale and guests from the world of musi­cal the­atre dis­cuss the shows, the music and more on the third Sat­ur­day in the month at 2pm Pacif­ic. Oth­er shows go out at 12 noon and 4pm Pacif­ic with a new episode every two weeks, as follows:

• On Wednes­days and Sat­ur­days we present “Where Have You Been?”, where Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er and Elrik Mer­lin dis­cuss places and events of inter­est across the Sec­ond Life Grid.
• On Thurs­days and Sun­days we present a series on the Tarot with Dr Hon­ey Heart, cov­er­ing the mean­ing and his­to­ry of the cards, as well as read­ings, called “Tarot @ Teatime”.
• In addi­tion, on Fri­days there’s a range of mys­ti­cal “Sto­ries for the Soul” from ZBS Foundation.

On the music front, the sta­tion broad­casts “Genre Days” on Wednes­days and Sat­ur­days, which explore a vari­ety of musi­cal gen­res rotat­ing through the month, rang­ing from Ear­ly Music and Baroque to Big Band, Folk, New Age and more. The sta­tion has its head­quar­ters in the Not­thund region in Sec­ond Life, in the form of a cus­tom Art Deco-styled theatre.

Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio is fund­ed by lis­ten­ers, and by spon­sors who receive reg­u­lar thanks on the air and a logo on the VCR web site at https://vcradio.org. Full details on spon­sor­ship, pro­gram­ming and oth­er aspects of the sta­tion can be found on the web­site. Tune in at http://main.vcradio.org

In addi­tion to this web site, we have a Face­book Page at https://www.facebook.com/virtualcommunityradio

Tune in to the main stream at http://main.vcradio.org. You can use this URL for lis­ten­ing in your brows­er (if sup­port­ed), using a net play­er like VLC or WinAmp, or plug­ging into your vir­tu­al world land par­cel so that vis­i­tors can hear it. There’s also a play­er on this page. For more on how to lis­ten, see this page.

VCR is sup­port­ed by lis­ten­ers and spon­sors, and if you would like to join their num­ber, do check out the Spon­sor­ship and Friends & Patrons page. Spon­sors get a pan­el on a rotat­ing home page slideshow, reg­u­lar thanks on-air, and a link to their web site or in-world loca­tion. Spon­sors and Friends/Patrons also receive a spe­cial newslet­ter with infor­ma­tion on upcom­ing pro­grammes and events.