A student internet radio station, Studentski Grad, Sofia
OverviewM
Radio Bigben was a student internet radio station that broadcast on the Studentski Grad network in Sofia from the fall of 2003 to March 2007 — a digital project from an era when internet access in the dormitories spread through local networks, block by block.
The station went live in the fall of 2003, on Georgi Georgiev's own initiative, broadcasting on the local network of block 54. This was a period when internet access across the complex was still fragmented — separate providers covered separate dormitories, and there was almost no connectivity between blocks.
Later, the station grew beyond block 54 and could be picked up across all of Studentski Grad. The expansion coincided with the arrival of Megalan — an internet provider founded in 2001 — in the complex, a moment when the individual block networks were gradually merging into shared infrastructure; the exact date of that transition, like with the network's other projects, is lost to time.
Alongside the expansion, the station's second channel was born — Trance, which played every evening between 8 p.m. and midnight. Radio Bigben broadcast until March 2007 — nearly four years, during which thousands of songs and thousands of listener shout-outs passed through its player.
internet radio
Studentski Grad
IP streaming
music compilations
Computer
BIGBEN — bigben.bl-54.studgrad.net (internal, accessible only on the Studentski Grad network)
Radio Bigben broadcast entirely over IP, directly on Studentski Grad's local network — no FM frequency, no traditional transmitter. Playlists were built from a music library of around 4,000 mp3 files, continually updated with the latest hits and trance tracks, from which each day's content for both channels was drawn.
The broadcast ran on a licensed copy of radio-automation software (RadioSoft), which played the playlists on a preset schedule and allowed round-the-clock, unattended broadcasting — at night, on weekends, at any time. Through a built-in RDS feature, the software also displayed text messages on listeners' players, rendered through a Flash player in the browser — this was how the station read out listener shout-outs, without needing a live voice on air.
The program ran from a Windows desktop computer, loaded with the extensive music library and additional broadcasting software — powerful enough to run all of that alongside the local IP stream to the dormitory network. The same machine later brought together all of the network's services under the name BIGBEN Server.
Reach
Blocks in Studentski Grad averaged 8 floors, around 14 rooms per floor, and two people per room — roughly 900 to 1,100 people per block. Just the first four blocks of the expansion (54, 55, 59, 52) meant a potential reach in the thousands, before the station even reached all of Studentski Grad.
Music Programming
Channel 1 — CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio): 24 hours a day, the latest hits from the station's music library.
Channel 2 — Trance: every evening between 8 p.m. and midnight.
The round-the-clock hit format and the concentrated evening trance block matched the rhythm of dormitory life — background music by day, a more immersive evening mood for those seeking a specific sound.
Team
Radio Bigben had no team in the usual sense — no live host, no editorial staff, no engineers. The only formal role was program director, held by Georgi Georgiev: he selected the music for preset slots and cataloged it in RadioSoft's database, while the software itself handled the rest — broadcasting, automation, RDS messages to listeners. In a sense, RadioSoft was his team.
Releases
Radio Bigben revived an old tradition — periodically releasing music compilations with a clear stylistic focus. Two such compilations came out, recorded in the station's own studio and distributed on listener request, with excerpts from some of the tracks also available to stream on the station's website.
BIGBEN's DREAMERS — Special Edition, vol. 1 was released on July 16, 2003: fifteen tracks plus two bonus tracks, with a total runtime of 78 minutes and 12 seconds. Artists included Enigma, Chicane, Robert Miles, Paul van Dyk, York, Humate, Oliver Shanti and Friends, and Oceanlab.
BIGBEN's DREAMERS — Special Edition, vol. 2 was released on September 11, 2003: ten tracks plus one bonus track, with a total runtime of 64 minutes and 37 seconds. Artists included Mohoroba, Jason Tirello, Skyway, In Credo, Oliver Shanti, and DJ Quicksilver.
Connection to the Other Projects
Radio Bigben wasn't a solitary project — the same BIGBEN computer, on the same network, also ran BIGBEN Search — the local file search engine, launched alongside the station — and later BIGBEN Video, the movie catalog. Together they formed BIGBEN Server — the shared infrastructure, which has its own page on this site.
The Station Today
Radio Bigben broadcast for nearly four years — from the fall of 2003 to March 2007 — entirely over Studentski Grad's IP network, without a single live voice on air, but with thousands of songs and thousands of listener shout-outs passing through it. The station stopped when Georgi Georgiev left the Studentski Grad network — outside it, the station had no way to continue, since it relied entirely on the local infrastructure. Today the project is offline, but it remains a memory from a different era of Studentski Grad — before streaming platforms, when the music in the dorms came from a computer somewhere on the network.
Studentski Grad 
