"When Tilos Radio began pirate broadcasts in 1991, for a long time Palotai singlehandedly spun all the records.One of Tilos Radio's founders said, "The entire philosophy of the radio was built on Zsolt's music and its wonderfully eclectic nature." Today the radio broadcasts legally and is acknowledged to have played a significant part in the formation of Budapest's musical taste. Tilos Radio is still one of the only sources in Budapest for underground dance music trends - drum' n' bass, big beat, trip hop, hip hop, electro, dub, techno and more - along with folk music. And these days, Zsolt Palotai is still the radio's musical director."

"Tilos Radio is a community, a non-profit radio station in Budapest, Hungary. Tilos Radio was the first community radio station in Hungary, as a pirate broadcaster established in 1991. The programme makers in the radio have always contributed on a voluntary basis. Tilos Radio has never broadcast advertisements. Tilos Radio has a strong social and freedom-of-expression commitment. Tilos Radio plays a key role in the cultural and lifestyle scene of Budapest. Tilos Radio was established as a pirate community radio station in Budapest in 1991 as a way of bringing the public's attention to the fact that there was at that time no legal framework for independent and community broadcasters. During the first years of its broadcasting, Tilos (which means "forbidden" in Hungarian) enjoyed wide public interest and has played a key role in the liberalisation of the airwaves in Hungary, which happened in 1995. Tilos Radio has got a legal frequency license in 1995 and became a hot local community station in Budapest with its morning phone-in talk-shows and its cool music programmes, broadcasting 12 hours a day. Now Tilos is a key player in the cultural and lifestyle scene of Budapest. Meanwhile Tilos Radio has its fingers on the public pulse with its social thinking, minority oriented programmes, and its radical and tolerant attitude. Tilos' services are mainly financed by listeners' donations and the income from fund-raising events, and partly by support from EU programmes, international NGO's and charity institutions. In November 1999, Tilos Radio had to apply for a new frequency licence. Tilos Radio's application was for 24 hour a day broadcasting. Tilos has not received a new frequency licence - this means that the radio has to leave its current frequency later this year. There is another ongoing frequency for community radio stations advertised about which there has been no decision made yet. There is currently one community radio frequency in Budapest while there are more than ten commercial frequencies used in the city. This is against the law that suggests the number of community frequencies be half of the amount of those used by commercial broadcasters."

Listen: tilos.hu/mp3/tilos96.m3u
tilos.hu