Most internet radio stations are started by music fans who want to share what they love. Leipzig Beatzz has a better story: it's the station that a DJ bought when the company running it was about to shut it down. Philip Mertens, known in Leipzig's club circuit as PhilBeat, had been programme director at Leipzig Beatzz since its launch. When the original broadcaster, BCS Broadcast Sachsen, lost interest after the station's DAB+ licence expired, Mertens made an offer and took full ownership. That was 2020. Since then, he's been running the whole operation himself out of Leipzig, and the ambition has only grown.
From DAB+ Licence to One-Man Empire
Leipzig Beatzz launched on 31 January 2018, as part of a wave of 15 new DAB+ stations that went live simultaneously in Leipzig that day. The Saxony media regulator (SLM) had licensed BCS to broadcast a youth-oriented electronic music programme on DAB+ block 6C, filling a gap left when another applicant pulled out. The slogan was immediate and blunt: "Deine Stadt, Deine Beatzz", Your City, Your Beatzz. Mertens was already running the programming.
The DAB+ run ended around 2020, and radio enthusiast forums document what happened next: BCS no longer wanted to carry the cost, the station faced shutdown, and Mertens stepped in and bought it. He then rebuilt it as a fully independent web radio, powered by RadioKing, and eventually got it back onto DAB+ in Saxony. Today it streams 24/7 at leipzig-beatzz.de, under the tagline "Listen to the Future of Music", which is also how it appears on TuneIn.
What Leipzig Beatzz Actually Plays
The format sits firmly at the energetic end of electronic music. Mertens' own mission statement, posted on his personal site, is to fill the station with "the very BEST Electronic Dance Music the entire globe has to offer", spending time every week searching for artists he calls "the crown jewels of the modern music world." It's a curatorial project, not just a shuffle playlist.
- EDM and hands-up, the core sound, with the uplifting melodic energy rooted in German and Dutch dance culture. Recent station plays like John Summit and Gorgon City's remix of Where You Are show it leaning into club crossovers with global reach.
- Hardstyle, driving kick patterns and distorted basslines. Not all EDM stations go here; Leipzig Beatzz does, and it matters for the audience that came up on Germany's festival circuit.
- Techno, the city's own genre in many ways, added darker texture to a station that could otherwise stay purely festival-facing.
- PhilBeat's "Bringing The Future" show, a weekly 60-minute mix broadcast every Wednesday and Saturday from 17:00, where Mertens personally presents new tracks. It's the editorial heart of the station and also available as a SoundCloud playlist.
Why Leipzig Makes Sense for This Kind of Station
Leipzig tends to get overlooked in conversations about German electronic music. Berlin gets the headlines, Düsseldorf gets Kraftwerk, Frankfurt has its minimal scene. But Leipzig's electronic landscape rivals any other German city. The Distillery club, founded in 1992 shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is one of the country's oldest and most respected techno clubs. Institut fur Zukunft ("Institute for the Future") opened to significant buzz in the mid-2010s. Moon Harbour, one of Germany's key house labels, is based here. The city built a real club culture out of the post-reunification vacuum, and it runs deep.
Mertens is embedded in that scene, not just broadcasting from the outside. His Instagram bio lists him as CEO of Leipzig Beatzz and CEO of the Twenty One Club, a venue on Gottschedstrasse in Leipzig's centre. The station and the club feed into each other: local DJ sets, new tracks, the city's live circuit. It's a small operation running with real integration into the scene it represents.
The Station That Became a Festival
The most revealing thing about where Leipzig Beatzz is heading is the Future Beatzz Festival, scheduled for 29 August 2026 at the Nordstrand on Lake Cospuden, just south of the city. The lineup features PhilBeat alongside DJs including Jake Dile, Beatz Fire, Laxzz, and others. The format is a daytime outdoor festival (2 to 10pm), with a main stage covering EDM, Afro House, Hard Techno and Tech House, pyrotechnics, LED production, and beach vibes by the water. Tickets are already on sale at leipzig-beatzz.de/festival.
That's an unusual trajectory for an internet radio station. Most stay streaming. Leipzig Beatzz is using the station as a launchpad for something bigger: a brand, a club, a festival, a music community anchored to a city. The Instagram bio sums it up concisely: "Radio, Club, App, Festival, Beatzz Vodka." There's even a branded vodka.
Why You Should Have This on Rotation
If you listen to a lot of electronic music radio, you know the template: AutoDJ, thin playlists, no curatorial personality. Leipzig Beatzz is the opposite of that. There's a person behind it who spends real hours hunting for tracks each week, broadcasts his own show twice a week, plays clubs in the same city the station broadcasts from, and is trying to build something that outlasts the stream. The "Bringing The Future" philosophy isn't just a tagline, it's what Mertens actually does, and you can hear it in a playlist that moves between John Summit remixes and deep cuts you won't find on algorithmic stations.
Stream Leipzig Beatzz Free on Radio Shuffle
Tune in to Leipzig Beatzz on Radio Shuffle, no account, no app, no fee. Press play and you'll get the Wednesday or Saturday show if you're lucky, or a continuously curated stream of electronic music that PhilBeat built track by track from Leipzig.