This is our second episode examining the history and legacy of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in recognition of the law’s 20th anniversary. This time around Prof. John Anderson from Brooklyn College explains how Reagan-era deregulation, culminating in the Telecom Act, triggered civil disobedience on the airwaves along with citizen action that continues to push […]
February 13 is World Radio Day, a day set aside to celebrate radio as a medium, sponsored by UNESCO. This year’s theme is “Radio in Times of Emergency and Disaster.” Though celebrated globally, World Radio Day is less well known in the United States. To help better connect us with global community radio, Eric talked […]
In this week’s Radio Survivor Podcast, I talked about my ongoing radio station tour project. I’m nearing my 100th radio station tour, so I chatted with Eric Klein about the overall project and reflected back on some of my early station tours in 2008. (more…)
Twenty years ago a piece of legislation was passed that would change radio forever–and not for the better. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 lifted ownership restrictions on stations, unleashing an onslaught of acquisitions, consolidation and the ultimate devastation of local radio in communities across the country. Dr. Christopher Terry from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee joins […]
Thousands of internet radio stations have gone silent in 2016, while thousands more may yet shut down, primarily because of new performance royalty fees that have skyrocketed for small and mid-sized internet radio stations. In this piece I explore how this challenge might encourage some webcasters to give up complying with the law and simply […]
They call the camp “The Jungle.” It is a refugee zone on the northern edge of Calais, France. Around 6,000 migrants have streamed into the center of late. As this rough map of the area (below right) indicates, many are coming from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and various Kurdish regions. They also migrate in from countries in North […]
Internet radio expert Kurt Hanson declared January 31 to be Sunday Bloody Sunday for the medium. Most significantly, that was the day that Live365 turned off 5000-some internet radio streams it hosted for broadcasters large and small. The shutdown comes after several other internet stations announced their closure, and countless more quietly went away. The […]
I hope you caught the plethora of college radio coverage on Radio Survivor this week. I shared my final radio station field trip report from 2015, which recounts my visit to University of San Francisco’s college radio station KUSF.org. It’s been 5 years since KUSF lost its FM signal and it was reassuring to see […]
Over the past few weeks, the FCC has granted construction permits to three new low power FM (LPFM) radio stations. Those new stations include Freedom Christian Fellowship in Madras, Oregon, Iglesia Cristiana Amor Y Restauracion in Houston, Texas, and Mount Zion Church in Bemidji, Minnesota. Additionally, a number of stations are set to launch in […]
Looking for info on how to listen to this 2021’s Super Bowl LV? Click here. For football fans who can’t be in front of a TV or an internet-connected device this Sunday, February 7, radio remains one of the best ways to catch Super Bowl 50. In the US Westwood One Sports remains the exclusive […]
