knixx.fm bills itself simply as "Dein Webradio," your web radio, but the tagline undersells how deliberately the Berlin station came together. According to the team's own account, it took roughly seven years to go from concept to launch, an unusually long runway for an internet radio project, built by people who had already spent decades in commercial broadcasting and wanted to try something different.
That patience shows in the pitch. Founder Carsten Kollosche, who brings over 25 years of radio experience, set out to build a station without the features most listeners associate with commercial radio: no ads, no news breaks, no call-in contests. Technical partner Markus Bartholdy, a former radio colleague Carsten brought in to help figure out how to actually run a web station, built the infrastructure behind that vision, while Daniel Höcherl, known internally as "Mr. Music," and Stephan Bodinus round out a small team that funds the whole operation out of their own pockets rather than through sponsorship.
Old Sound, Old-School Effort
The station's own slogan, "Radio klingt wieder wie damals, endlich," radio sounds like it used to, finally, points to the actual programming: a run of adult contemporary, oldies, pop and rock spanning the 1960s through today, delivered without the interruptions that have become standard on commercial FM. Shows like The RG Show, hosted by Chris Necke every Friday night since joining the team in October 2023, give the schedule a personality-driven anchor rather than leaving it purely to a playlist.
A Passion Project That Took Its Time
Most internet radio stations launch fast and cheap, a stream URL and a playlist thrown together in a weekend. knixx.fm did the opposite, spending years getting the format right before going live, funded entirely by the people building it rather than outside investors or ad revenue. For a station built by veterans of an industry increasingly defined by ad breaks and algorithm-driven playlists, that seven-year patience reads less like a delay and more like the whole point.