​Singapore's only radio station broadcasting local electronic music to cease transmitting

Earlier this week, Singapore based radio station Lush 99.5 announced that the station would stop transmitting later this summer.

Despite having built up a loyal following after 13 years on the air, the station said that they weren’t able to grow their listeners enough to sustain the operating costs of the station. In fact, listenership has been declining to around 50,000 weekly listeners.

Much to the dismay of those loyal 50,000 that tune in, the station will cease transmitting on August 31st at 11:59pm.

If there is a silver lining in it all it's that Lush will create a new initiative called the 'Singapore Sounds' project and it will feature local music, artists and gigs. The stations parent company, Mediacorp, will give the platform strong prominence across its five other English stations.

Read the full statement below.

Lush 99.5 will be especially missed be Singapore’s underground and alternative music communities for its dedication to local music as well as its programming consisting of indie, independent and electronic music.

One of Singapore’s longstanding electronic music DJs Zig Zach posted on social media this week about the monumental impact the loss will have on the local music community, even having talked about the station’s impact on the growth of the local electronic music scene as early as this month in an interview with Pulse Radio.

“Sad news for Singapore, as Lush99.5 is probably the only radio station that actually plays decent music and truly supports the alternative/electronic music scene here by promoting new artists and smaller local gigs to its listeners. Without these guys, taxi rides are gonna get a lot more painful and kids won't be exposed to a variety of music cultures.”

We wish the team at Lush 99.5 all the best in the future and look forward to disxovering the Singapore Sounds project.