Radio Survivor

For the past year we’ve been chronicling the evolution of FCC FREE Radio in San Francisco. Starting out as renegade LPFM community radio broadcasters in 2009, they went Internet-only in May 2010 and are now embarking on a mission of becoming a broader-based Internet radio station and content provider.

When I visited a few weeks back, General Manager John Miller hinted at a deal that was in the works that might be a stepping stone for a much larger audience for FCC FREE Radio.

Well, it turns out that today marks the beginning of the station’s new gig as a content provider for SFStation.com, an online city guide focused on events and attractions in San Francisco. Through its partnership with FCC FREE Radio, SF Station now features a weekly hour-long Internet radio show called SF Station Radio that is made up of music selections and calendar listings for that week. Hosted by a SF Station staff member, SF Station Radio is recorded at FCC FREE Radio’s studio and airs live on Wednesdays from Noon to 1pm. It is also archived on the SF Station website for a week. This week’s episode highlights indie-oriented featured events happening in San Francisco in the next 7 days, as well as music from artists taking part in the Outside Lands music festival.

In addition to facilitating this weekly radio show, FCC Free Radio is also highlighted as the official radio station for the SF Station website, with a link to its “24-hour Program Stream” provided from the SF Station Radio page.

With many websites seeking out audio content, this is an interesting partnership and a creative way to blend two community resources. In a similar vein, the San Francisco Bay Guardian launched its own web radio show in April. Their show (which airs several times a week) features Johnny Angel Wendell and San Francisco Bay Guardian Executive Editor Tim Redmond discussing topics ranging from California politics, to the state of news to local controversies such as whether pet stores should be banned in San Francisco.

Lately there’s been a lot of buzz about the comings and goings of pirate radio stations, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area.

New station Radio Valencia is about to begin broadcasting any day now in San Francisco and pirate radio stalwart Freak Radio Santa Cruz is continuing in its mission, while looking for a new transmitter site.

On the flip side, San Francisco’s Pirate Cat Radio is sticking to the Internet, after getting fined by the FCC in 2009, while its owner is overseeing the day-to-day operations of a licensed FM community radio station an hour away from the city in rural Pescadero.

Like their rebel radio compadres in the Bay Area, FCCFREE RADIO is also in a state of transition, as they make the switch from being an unlicensed FM station to operating as an Internet broadcasting company. Things have changed a lot since I visited FCCFREE RADIO a year ago. At the time, owner John Miller and Program Director John Hell talked about their plans for the unlicensed LPFM community station in San Francisco, citing their desire to “put the local back into radio.” Since my last visit, they’ve built up their schedule and have attracted a following of listeners both online and over the terrestrial airwaves.

However, something very significant happened on May 7, 2010. They turned off the station’s transmitter.

I was eager to visit FCCFREE RADIO again to learn more about why they decided to remove the station from the FM airwaves, so on June 25th, I stopped by to revisit the station and learn more about what owner John Miller has in store.

John told me that the staff of FCCFREE RADIO voted in favor of turning off the transmitter after a recent visit by the FCC to the transmitter site. Although John exudes the confidence and bravado of a long-time underground radio broadcaster, he was clearly spooked by the latest letter from the FCC. He said, “I had the FCC at my door in record time,” adding, “They must be angry.”  After a couple of notices from the FCC, they decided to change the station’s course. He told me that times really have changed for pirate radio, saying, “Unfortunately people go to jail now.” While reminiscing about stations like Boulder Free Radio, John talked about how “they were heroes” and “did it on a grand scale,” but that they were hit extremely hard by the FCC. (more…)

Of course I’m biased, but San Francisco seems to have always been ground zero for radio innovators, back from the early days of pioneering technologists, to the freeform FM era, to punk and new wave stalwarts in college and commercial radio in the 1980s, to pirate radio champions like Free Radio Berkeley in the 1990s, to the web radio entrepreneurs of the 2000s and beyond.

Although the lure of Internet-only radio is turning the focus away from terrestrial radio for many; there are compelling reasons why radio enthusiasts continue to launch licensed and unlicensed AM and FM stations in 2010.

In San Francisco, a brand new unlicensed community radio station, Radio Valencia, is about to get off the ground, with a hoped-for launch date of early July. Housed in artist/musician/activist/former San Francisco mayoral candidate Chicken John’s warehouse “Chez Poulet” in the Mission District, it’s being envisioned as not only an underground radio station, but also as part of a larger non-profit community resource.

Named by Chicken John, Radio Valencia will probably evoke memories for many San Franciscans of the former restaurant of the same name (known for its well-crafted playlists of music) that met its unfortunate demise after several fire engines crashed into its corner storefront on Valencia and 23rd Streets. Although Chicken John says that the radio station is not meant to be an homage to the old Radio Valencia, it will no doubt appeal to some of the same folks who frequented the place back in the 1990s.

When I visited the station last Thursday, I got to see the beginning stages of the studio that had been built by Chicken John in a week’s time. One of the founding members of the station, John Hell, talked to me about the collective vision for Radio Valencia and how it will be different from his numerous other radio endeavors.

Ironically, it was just about a year ago that John Hell chatted with me about his then-new radio project, FCCFree Radio. Although enthusiastic about the possibilities of that particular station at the time, John Hell recently parted ways with FCCFree Radio after having philosophical differences with the station owner.

Because of his strong passion for and commitment to radio, it was clear that it wouldn’t be long before he landed at another radio start-up. John Hell is no stranger to radio, having worked at college stations KCSM and KFJC, pirate stations San Francisco Liberation Radio, Pirate Cat Radio, and FCCFree Radio, as well as on the crew that founded the LPFM station Radio Free Burning Man that operated out in the Nevada desert during the annual arts festival from 1994 to 2008.

When John Hell was approached by his long-time friend Chicken John (they met at Burning Man and soon after began doing events like “The Church of the Burning Ulcer” together), the initial idea was to start up an Internet radio station. As they discussed things further, the concept for Radio Valencia developed even more and the hope is that eventually it will be a community center with an open-door policy and a full schedule of events. Chicken John, John Hell, and other early participants (including Evolution Control Committee’s Trademark Gunderson and PhotoBoof’s Wrybread) presented the idea of this new station to other like-minded folks in their social networks and reached out to former college and pirate radio DJs and friends with deep connections in various arts and culture scenes in San Francisco. (more…)

Hot on the heels of AT&T’s new data pricing plans, Slacker Radio released the new version 2.0 of their app which will permit listeners to cache their stations while on a wifi network. Then the stations can be listened to without using up precious data from the 3G network.

On the surface this may sound like a great alternative to Pandora or last.fm. But it must be noted that the caching feature is only available with a paid Slacker Radio Plus subscription. Users of the free service can take advantage of a 14-day trial of caching.

Under the monthly paid subscription model Slacker Radio caching seems a whole lot more like the Rhapsody service, which provides access to unlimited music for $10 a month. Rhapsody also lets you download as much music as you like to your smartphone to listen to without using a wifi or cellular data connection. Now, it’s true that Rhapsody is less radio-like than Slacker, in that you choose the artists and albums. However, the service also features Rhapsody Radio, although it isn’t cacheable and isn’t based upon user preferences.

Overall Slacker caching looks like a middle ground between listening to streaming Slacker (or Pandora or last.fm) and listening to a playlist or music podcast stored on your smartphone. That might be worth the $3.99 – $4.99 a month for some folks, especially since it’s cheaper than the data overage charge.

What a year in radio it’s been!

Back in June, 2009, Matthew, Paul and I agreed to focus our energies on Radio Survivor in order to champion all things radio.

Coming from the perspective of radio fans, academics, and DJs; we’ve devoted much energy to espousing the virtues and lamenting the pitfalls of radio in all of its forms.

There is still hope for radio, not only in expected places like college, community and other non-commercial stations, but also in some free-thinking commercial stations, on the all-but-ignored AM dial, over satellite, online, and through mobile devices.

We think it’s been great fun over the past year, but know that we can always do better. To help keep us on our toes (and to help keep us around), we invite you to:

1) Send us suggestions on stories that we should cover

2) Follow us on Twitter, “Like” Us on Facebook, and tell your friends about us

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4) Post your classified ads and radio events on Radio Survivor (It’s free!)

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We appreciate all of the support, even if it’s just reading our site!

Today Apple CEO Steve Jobs made his now-annual announcement for the new version of the company’s top product. While there were several surprises in store, like the addition of video conferencing and HD video recording, there wasn’t anything unexpected for radio enthusiasts.

Jobs confirmed the debut of multitasking with the new version 4 of the iPhone OS which already had been revealed last month. What’s nice about multitasking is that audio apps like Pandora, Slacker, last.fm, AOL Radio and the Public Radio Player will play in the background while using other apps, just like listening to iPod music.

For a hard core online radio listener multitasking may indeed be the “killer app” that makes it worth spending the $199 to upgrade to the 16 GB iPhone 4 from a first generation iPhone or the 3G. Owners of the 3GS will get multitasking, too, which also makes for a cheaper upgrade for owners of earlier models, at $99.

Apple says the new iPhone has a bigger battery offering up to 40 hours of music listening time and up to 6 hours of 3G web browsing. Listening to streaming radio over 3G is quite a bit more data intensive than simple web browsing, so it’s doubtful you’ll get 6 hours of 3G audio streaming.

Unfortunately, new iPhone owners starting contracts with AT&T will no longer have an unlimited data plan available to them, with the biggest data plan topping out at 2 GB per month, with $10 for each additional 1 GB. It’s unclear if a current iPhone owner can continue to have an unlimited plan if she starts a new contract upon buying an iPhone 4, though I should expect so.

Still missing from the iPhone is an actual radio capable of receiving traditional analog or HD broadcasts. When the radio-equipped iPod Nano debuted last October rumors starting swirling that there was a latent radio receiver inside the iPhone. One would think that if the rumor were true, that radio would have come out with the introduction of the iPhone 4. Since we’ve seen no sign of an iPhone radio with this major update of its OS, I’m guessing we’re unlikely to see one in the near future, if ever.

Last week AT&T announced that new smartphone customers will no longer be eligible for the unlimited data plans that current customers enjoy. Instead, two somewhat less expensive plans will be available. For $15 new customers may download 200 MB of data per month, with a charge of $15 for every additional 200 GB over the limit. 2 GB per month will cost $25, plus another $10 for each 1 GB after that. Current data plan customers pay $30 for unlimited data. For its part AT&T says that either of these new plans provides enough data to satisfy 98% of their customers.

While it may be true that the vast majority of AT&T customers use less than 2 GB of data in a month, I would argue that’s because data-hungry mobile streaming media is just starting to take off. But the these new caps threaten to stunt that growth just as mobile internet radio is gaining steam.

The 200 MB of data offered by the least expensive plan covers only about 200 minutes of streaming stereo music at the common bitrate of 128kbps. And that’s without any other data usage for email, web browsing or anything else. Even listening to a lower-quality mono talk station at 32 kbps will only stretch listening to 800 minutes, or 13 hours.

The 2 GB plan will cover about 34 hours of stereo music and as much as 136 hours of low-bitrate mono talk. At first blush that seems like a fair amount of listening time, but how does it measure up against real-world radio listening? Someone whose commute lasts about an hour each way will easily listen to over 40 hours of radio in a month. If that commuter wants to use her iPhone or Blackberry to listen to Pandora, last.fm or another streaming music station she’ll be over her limit by the last week of the month.

Without access to hard statistics on how many hours the average mobile Pandora or last.fm user listens it’s hard to say for sure how many new AT&T customers are likely to be affected. However, I do think it’s fair to say that these limits will make many smartphone users cautious about how much time they’ll spend listening to internet radio on the go, especially in order to avoid overage fees.

Of course, AT&T is not the only wireless data carrier in the US. As long as you don’t have your heart set on an iPhone there are lots of other carriers to choose from who still offer unlimited data plans. But for how much longer? Computerworld quotes several analysts who predict that Verizon, the nation’s second largest carrier, will set caps in as soon as six months. While there may be some pricing competition on these plans, I’m guessing they’ll offer pretty similar amounts of data for prices that only vary by a few dollars a month.

With a cost between 75 cents and $4.50 and hour, listening to mobile internet radio on an AT&T smartphone starts to look pretty uncompetitive compared to traditional broadcast, which is free, or satellite radio which offers unlimited listening for $10 – $20 a month. While it may be inevitable that the days of unlimited data plans will come to an end, I hope that the metered pricing quickly becomes more reasonable, permitting a reasonable amount of streaming radio listening. If not, this vibrant new way of listening to radio might be stunted before it has a chance to blossom.

Already some of us have been listening to live streaming internet radio on our mobile devices, like iPhones and Blackberries. But, as I argued last month, the experience still doesn’t quite add up to true mobile internet radio, especially because when you’re using cell data like 3G it saps the heck out of your battery. My experience streaming live radio on my iPhone gives me a little more than an hour before I’m nearly out of juice. The new Apple iPad looks to be a great mashup of an iPhone and netbook, which are both decent devices for listening to internet radio on the go, but also have their drawbacks.

The fact that some iPad models offer 3G wireless data connectivity out-of-the box, for a very reasonable $30 a month without any contracts make it a great candidate for mobile internet radio listening. It won’t necessarily be any better for the car than an iPhone, Blackberry or Android phone. But in other mobile circumstances it shows distinct promise.

So the question is, will the iPad bring us one step closer to truly mobile internet radio? Based on early specs, and having never touched it myself, the answer is a distinct maybe.

The first important factor is battery life. If the battery poops out after only an hour, then it’s only good for short trips. But if you have a longer train or bus commute, or are outside away from a wi-fi connection you probably want at least two good hours. While Apple specifies that you get 10 hours of active wi-fi use on a charge, no 3G batterly life specs are published. With a much bigger battery than an iPhone one would expect that constant 3G use would go longer, but we’ll have to wait until the first longer-term reviews come out.

The next big issue is sound quality. I currently use my iPhone, netbook or MacBook Pro to stream audio in a variety of circumstances, including home and when away in hotels. They’re all fine for using with headphones or external speakers, though the iPhone is the clear winner for fidelity. But I don’t always want to use headphones or lug around speakers. In a pinch the iPhone’s speaker is better than nothing at all (sounding like a pocket radio), and the netbook is barely any better. My MacBook’s speakers are the best in this category, but at the same time it seems wasteful overkill to use this powerful laptop computer just to listen to radio. My hope is that it will sound at least as good as a MacBook Pro, which itself is on par with a portable radio the size of a paperback book. We’ll have to see how the iPad’s speakers measure up against these competitors.

The final big factor is multitasking, and on this measure we already know the answer: there is no multi-tasking on the iPad. This is important because all of the streaming radio apps are not made by Apple, and you can only run one non-Apple app at a time. So you want to listen to a live feed of a Cubs game while Tweeting? No can do. Catch a live feed of the State of the Union while reading the New York Times online? Also a big no. So, unless Apple decides to add the ability to listen to live streams to the iPad’s iPod app–which is allowed to multitask with other apps–this is probably the biggest count against the radio capabilities of the iPad.

At least as far as mobile internet radio is concerned, the iPad looks like a tiny step forward. If the 3G battery life and sound quality are up to snuff, then it’s a bigger step. But without multitasking where you can listen to a live stream while using other apps, the iPad is not the next big thing in mobile internet radio.

The biggest news at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show might be Google’s new Nexus smartphone, but that doesn’t mean there’s no space for radio in all the gadget frenzy. Your resident RadioSurvivors don’t yet have the travel budget to jet off to Vegas to roam the show floor in person. Instead, I’m picking through the press releases and news stories (which often are just rewritten press releases) from cold and snowy Chicago.

Although I am not a car owner myself (I traded my old Subaru for a new bike this year–no lie!) the automobile is still the site of much radio listening, and the realm of some interesting tech developments. Internet and iTunes tagging appear to be the radio stars this year, with satellite playing a supporting role. As one of our readers pointed out, Ford recently announced that it would offer a factory-installed HD Radio receiver that includes iTunes tagging. In addition the company said it’s working on integrating tagging with Sirius satellite radio, which will also feature the ability to record and playback up to 45 minutes of satellite audio. Shades of Apple’s “live-pause” in the new iPod Nano?

Sony also offers up a car HD receiver with iTunes tagging (CDX-GT700HD) and Pioneer offers up several new models with the same features. But their new top-end receiver (AVIC-X920BT) goes one better by adding support for Pandora. The catch is that you need an iPhone that connects via a USB cable. Once linked, then you can browse stations on the receiver’s 6.1″ display.

Alpine also takes the iPhone route to offer Pandora in your auto with its iDA-X305S receiver. No to be left out Ford promises Pandora integration along with Stitcher, which is apparently the news/talk yin to Pandora’s yang, and something I’d never heard of before. Yet again, Ford’s approach requires an intermediary, with SYNC project manager Julius Marchwicki promising,

in the future, if you bring Pandora or Stitcher into the car on your phone, it will work seamlessly.

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One of the most satisfying aspects of putting together our review of the decade’s most important radio trends was the number of comments we received. It appears we touched a nerve or two. And while not everyone agreed with our arguments or conclusions, we did get some thought provoking responses.

Seeing as how we like to encourage some rousing debate about radio, with this post I’d like to highlight a few of them.

Responding to #11, cash-strapped schools turn their backs on college radio, Seth Thornberry points out:

In another example of the spirit of independent radio, the DJs from KTXT got together and created The Llano Idea which has kept up the volunteer run radio (online, at least).

In response to #6, HD Radio launches, but who listens? Who cares? BrianK finds some hope for the service:

Ford announced today that HD Radio is factory installed in their autos and the at least 4X digital power increase for HD radio is on the cusp of being approved which will give listeners stereo reception upto twice as far as traditional auto FM receivers in noise-free and to my ears much better high frequency response

But Greg begs to differ, noting that,

Ford has been announcing that it would add HD Radio since 2007, but it never materialized. Also, Ford is an investor in iBiquity. … BMW even has an HD Radio trouble-shooting guide, and there are nothing but complaints about HD Radio in BMW Forums, so I’m guessing that it will be the same situation with Ford.

And Robert D Young Jr quips:

PS. just one little correction: CD quality is really “seedy” quality.

(more…)