In 2009, a University of Denver Magazine profile of the school’s student radio station bore the headline, “The nine lives of DU radio.” It’s a fitting description for the ebb and flow of radio activity on the Colorado campus, where there have been at least 7 distinct stations since the 1940s. The current college radio station, KXDU, was founded in spring 2022 (see their archived website from 2023 in the Wayback Machine) and began streaming broadcasts in the 2023-2024 school year.
Touring College Radio Station KXDU
Tucked into a small fishbowl-like room on the third floor of the Community Commons building, KXDU’s wall of windows look out over an undergraduate student lounge space. During my visit on October 23, 2025, students drifted in and out of the lounge to play pool, study or take a break. On that warm autumn afternoon, KXDU Audio Technician Grady Dionne and DJ Natalie Hultquist chatted with me about the station that they call home. Dionne is a senior and has been with KXDU since freshman year, whereas Hultquist is a brand new transfer student and had just joined the station.
The compact radio station space is minimally stocked with just what KXDU needs to get broadcasts out to listeners. There’s a desk, mixing board, computer, headphones, a few side tables, colorful chairs, and an ottoman. A collection of large posters tucked against a wall are reminders of the variety of events hosted by KXDU over the past few years. One thing that is absent is physical music.
Without a Website, KXDU Communicates through Instagram
With no music library, KXDU relies on DJs to supply their own music. Additionally, there’s no functional website at the moment. The story goes that someone left the station and they lost the domain; subsequently the site hasn’t been updated in two years. Without a website, KXDU uses its Instagram page to get the word out about shows and provide a link to its stream. KXDU members have also been providing music coverage on their Medium blog.
Events, Concerts and Tiny Dorm Concerts
Despite the station’s modest digs, KXDU makes a big impression with its events, shows, and live music sessions. Truly a community-focused endeavor, KXDU produces concerts featuring campus bands, DJs at events, and curates a series of live sessions highlighting student musicians. These Tiny Dorm Concerts began before KXDU had even launched a streaming radio station. The beautifully shot and edited live sets feature artists from University of Denver and are recorded in musicians’ dorm rooms or residences, both on and off-campus. An archive of 12 episodes of Tiny Dorm Concerts can be viewed on the KXDU YouTube page.
Campus Bands are Embraced by the University of Denver station
Dionne is in charge of all of KXDU’s audio and video equipment and is very involved with Tiny Dorms. Immersed in music as a creator, student and professional, he is studying jazz guitar and audio engineering while also playing in bands and doing sound for shows. He described the local music scene as being very active with at least 10 to 15 bands on campus creating music influenced by pop, folk, and indie. He noted that shoegaze is also “pretty big” at the moment and said that he plays in a shoegaze band (Clove) and a post-punk band (Exhaler).
Spreading the Word about KXDU through Shows
In part because the concept of the radio station began before there was a live stream, KXDU focused initially on doing events. And these community-oriented events continue today. Dionne explained that events are also the best way that they attract new station members. Just before my visit, KXDU had hosted a house show, themed “indie sleaze,” and flyers were plastered all around campus to promote it.
Another big production is KXDU’s Spring Send Off music festival. Held at the end of the school year, it’s an all day event featuring 6 to 8 campus bands. The most recent Spring Send Off was in June 2025 and drew a few hundred attendees. Dionne said that the station typically works with another campus group for the festival and last spring they worked with the food pantry, even collaborating on merchandise.
Fall 2025 Programming Rolling out at KXDU
As far as the radio side of KXDU, the station and its new officers were just getting started for the school year when I visited. Around 20 people attend weekly club meetings and several hundred (some KXDU alumni) follow KXDU activities through their Slack channel. Programming is slowly rolling out, with around 8 DJs/hosts currently doing typically 2-hour shows on the KXDU stream. Dionne said that as new folks discover the club, they hope to expand their schedule to 5 days a week, but for the moment the KXDU program schedule is limited to Mondays and Tuesdays from 10am to 6pm.
Hultquist, along with a friend, just hosted her first show on KXDU. She told me that they plan to do themed shows every week and decided that with their inaugural show they would focus on playing music that they “grew up on” and the music that inspired their current music taste. She said it was fun to also send links to their families so that they could tune in. In speaking about future shows, Hultquist said that she planned to do a Halloween show and hoped to also do one about unrequited or “one-sided” love.
Dionne chimed in that he likes to play new music on his program. He’s done jazz shows and a number of thematic shows, including one for Valentine’s Day. While many DJs do their programs from the studio, Dionne does his from off-site since he has a fully outfitted home studio. Even though KXDU doesn’t have the tools to play physical music, Dionne will play vinyl records and CDs while DJing from home.
Legacy of Student Radio at University of Denver
Although KXDU is a brand new organization as of a few years ago, its call letters hearken back to one of the many previous student radio stations at University of Denver. The full radio backstory was unknown to the current staffers who I met with, but Dionne mentioned that he thought there had been an FM station in the 1980s and that the student club started up again in the early 2000s and then died out. Luckily there is some written history about radio on campus and other clues can be found in defunct station websites and social media accounts.
AM Carrier Current Station KVDU Launches in 1947
A 2009 article in University of Denver Magazine points to AM carrier current station KVDU, which launched in 1947, as the first student station on campus. After more than 20 years of campus-only broadcasts, KVDU expanded to FM with the launch of KCFR in 1970, in order to reach a broader audience. Within the same school year, KVDU ceased its carrier current broadcasts. The following year, KCFR hired professional staff to run the station and “in 1984, KCFR became an independent community radio station — one of two stations that founded the Colorado Public Radio network,” according to the University of Denver Magazine piece.
Radio Redefined on Campus in the 1970s and 1980s with KAOS
After the demise of carrier current station KVDU and the loss of student leadership at KCFR, a few other student radio stations appeared at University of Denver. These included KAOS from the early 1970s through at least the mid-1980s. A 1979 yearbook photo bears the motto “KAOS: The Voice of Centennial Towers 670 AM.” In 1986, a yearbook article, “Crisis and Rebirth: The Fall and Rise of the Student Media,” mentioned challenges at all of the campus media organizations, including KAOS. It cited “inconsistent operations, considerable requests for funding and little staff training.” Another accounting of station history includes reference to the call letters KEGH, but the only item that I could find related to this was a 1982 headline in the DU student newspaper, The Denver Clarion, reading, “KEGH Future Unsure After Total Staff Loss.”
Source: https://duarchives.coalliance.org/repositories/2/archival_objects/173348
Revival of KVDU as an Internet Station in 2001
In 2001, KVDU “The Pioneer Sound” made its debut as an internet-only station. Its archived website reads, “KVDU is the University of Denver’s Internet radio station. The entirely student-run station was launched on February 15th, 2001 after nearly two decades without student radio on the University of Denver campus. The broadcast originates on a Shoutcast server in the Driscoll University Center.”
KVDU Changes Name to KXDU in 2012
KVDU seemed to ebb and flow for a few years, had a new website and social media presence (check out its old MySpace page) starting around 2009, and released a live music compilation in 2010. In February 2012, KVDU changed its call letters to KXDU and had dreams of broadcasting over AM. After about a year of inactivity, another KXDU revival was organized in February 2014 (view its old website on the Wayback Machine) and seemed to be active through early 2016. It’s unclear for how long University of Denver was without a student radio station until the current iteration of KXDU was founded in 2022.
Thanks to KXDU + Station Tour Archive
Thanks to Grady Dionne and Natalie Hultquist for the tour of KXDU. It’s inspiring to see the station’s embrace of the University of Denver music culture, while continuing the long tradition of radio on campus. This is my 183rd radio station tour report and my 125th college radio station tour. You can view the entire collection of my radio station visits in numerical order or by station type in our archives.
