Record Store Day, now in its fifth year, is an annual celebration of the independent record store. This year it goes down next Saturday, April 16. Participating stores hold special events, like in-store concerts, while selling limited-edition singles and albums. I’ve been attending since 2008 and enjoy the recognition of the threatened species of the […]
Vocalo is a rimshot station owned by Chicago Public Media‘ based in Chesterton, Indiana that went on the air in 2007 as an experiment in bringing user-generated content to broadcast radio. When it launched CPM president Torey Malatia hailed the idea with a lot of rhetoric about making radically public radio, emphasizing public affairs and […]
The Chicago White Sox just signed a new multiyear agreement with CBS Radio station WSCR-AM to broadcast the home team’s games. Normally this isn’t the sort of news we cover here at Radio Survivor, but the unique twist to this contract is that it comes with a all-White-Sox HD channel on WSCR’s sister station, WJMK-FM. […]
One night last week I was tuning around the AM dial here in Chicago before going to sleep when I happened upon a station playing a nice, but unusual mix of vocal jazz standards. The music set was long, interrupted only by an ID for “950 the Avenue.” The next morning I googled the station […]
I’ve only lived in Chicago for two years, but I’ve been listening to WXRT in brief spurts for the last sixteen years when visiting the city. Living in the Central Illinois college towns of Champaign-Urbana, I’d often heard about WXRT from friends and acquaintances from the Chicago area. Inevitably it was the one station that […]
He may not have been able to successfully inherit the leadership of the Republican party this year, but at least good ol’ Rushbo gets a consolation prize: a whole musical performed in his honor. Last night Chicago’s famed Second City comedy company premiered their newest production, Rush Limbaugh! The Musical! The play follows Rush through […]
I first heard about the Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP) when I moved to Chicago in the spring of 2008. For all intents and purposes the project grew out of the former incarnation of Loyola University’s WLUW-FM which operated as a community radio station from 1997 to June 2008. In 2001 Loyola announced that it […]
Last month I had the pleasure of visiting WGBK-FM, a high school radio station in suburban Chicago. This was my very first trip to see a station run by teens and I was thrilled to witness young people doing radio. Not only were they working as DJs on standard music shows, but they were also […]
Far outside the view of the general public, the virtual cratediggers of the FCC’s electronic recesses like Matthew and myself are sometimes privy to the little slap-fights that go on between broadcasters. In this case things are getting a little heated over the far left end of the FM dial, with a prominent public radio […]
Fundraiser season continues at non-profit radio stations all over the country. Princeton’s station WPRB (apparently the oldest FM college radio station in the country, founded in 1940) ends their week-long fundraiser tomorrow. My own station KFJC (turning 50 next week) is pitching for cash until the station reaches its goal. And, Chicago Public Radio station […]
