Station premiers with 30-plus hours of original programming.

The Village Voice yesterday fired up Voice Radio, an online radio station accessible from the home page of the paper’s Web site. The site will feature around-the-clock music chosen by the weekly’s music writers and over 30 hours per week of specialty programming.

Robert Christgau, the Voice’s 30-year-veteran music critic, will host a weekly show based on his Consumer’s Guide to pop music, and gossip columnist Michael Musto will contribute a daily radio version of his “La Dolce Musto” column.

Other programming includes “Sessions”, a weekly concert series featuring live music from area clubs; a singer/songwriter series called “Acoustic Breakfast”; “Empire” a show exploring New York’s underground house music scene; a music and interview show called “The World CafÈ”; and “Voice Roundtable” a weekly talk show that will explore topics ranging from yoga to jug band music.

Greg Goff, Village Voice Media (VVM) executive vice president and president of new media, will oversee the effort. He’ll be working closely with VVM Executive Vice President Mike Sigman, who acts as the company’s liason with the music industry.

The station will soon be accessible through all seven VVM newspaper sites and may eventually be syndicated nationally. Voice spokesperson Jessica Bellucci said the company may later add specialty programming tailored to the markets served by the other papers.

VVM CEO David Schneiderman is cautiously optimistic about the project.

“We want to see how it works with the Voice first,” said Schneiderman. “If anybody can do web radio, the Voice can. If it works there, then we might try it at other papers.”

Rebekah Gleaves is a staff writer at Memphis Flyer.