Read some of the best writing about talk radio
Every weekend Slate shares a Longform-curated selection of non-fiction pieces about a common topic. This weekend the topic was talk radio, and all of these articles should be of interest to Radio Survivor readers. I’m still working through the list myself, including the history of the fundamentalist Christian settlement of Zion, Illinois and its pioneering […]
Study: radio lags TV in use of social media
A new survey produced by the Radio Television Digital News Association and Hofstra University suggests that radio stations aren’t using Twitter and Facebook as aggressively as television outlets. “The use of social media is now almost universal in TV, with all categories going near or into the 90-percentile range,” the report concludes. “A lot of […]
WFMU doc kickstarts into gear; Radiovision Festival announced
Sometimes I feel like WFMU news should be its own category here at Radio Survivor, due to the station’s constant innovation and newsworthiness. First up, I can report that the Kickstarter for the WFMU documentary Freeform or Death–which I reported on in June–ended successfully last month. 736 backers pledged 61% more than producer Tim K. […]
New Community Radio Station KHOI Launches in Ames, Iowa
Over the weekend, brand new community radio station KHOI launched in Ames, Iowa. Five years in the making, the license application for the full power non-commercial educational (NCE) FM station was submitted to the FCC in 2007 and was granted in 2009. KHOI went on the air and began their testing phase on 89.1 FM […]
Supporters help Free Speech Radio News reach funding goal
Radio Survivor readers might recall that the independent daily news half-hour Free Speech Radio News began an emergency fund-raising campaign in May in order to close a $75,000 budget gap. Last week FSRN announced that the goal had been matched and surpassed in July. Development director Alan Searle says that, “it is important to note […]
Our business is non-fiction: L.A. Theater Works radio does Huey P. Newton
“Testing one two . . . testing one two,” the disembodied voice of Huey P. Newton nervously declares. “Comrade, is this thing on, is working?” “It’s working good,” his assistant says. “All right, all right,” Newton responds, “because I’m terrified of cameras and large crowds . . . I’m actually rather shy in the visual. […]
College Radio DJ’s 24-Hour Physical Music Marathon on KUOI
Right now college radio DJ Anthony Saia is in the midst of a 24-hour special on University of Idaho’s radio station KUOI. He started this marathon DJ stint at 11:00 this morning and will continue through to 11:00am tomorrow. He is only playing CDs and vinyl from the massive KUOI record library (which contains over […]
Radio greetings from the Valencia Street fair in San Francisco
I wandered about the “Sunday Streets” Valencia Street Fair in San Francisco yesterday, and quickly ran into the Radio Valencia booth, where those denizens of the FM deep were holding forth: Malderor and Dr. Junk (that’s Malderor on the left in the photo below; Dr. Junk on the right; Dr. Sleepless in the middle). Malderor and […]
Rough notes: towards the end of Pacifica Radio (and the start of something new)
As the troubles facing Pacifica radio persist without apparent end, I sometimes wonder whether the five station listener supported radio network should voluntarily dismantle itself—that is, transfer its licenses to five local non-profit entities. I am not the first person to suggest this. Community radio pioneer Lorenzo Milam more or less laid the idea out […]
KZYX in “Rough Financial Straits”
Radio is a tough business to be in, regardless of whether one’s station is a commercial or non-commercial enterprise. Bills keep coming in and donations and advertising dollars don’t always keep pace. A few days ago, community/public radio station KZYX posted a dire message on its website with the headline “The Station is in Pretty […]