My trip to Cabrini University’s college radio station WYBF was a long-time coming. Located on Philadelphia’s main line in Radnor, Pennsylvania, WYBF has shared an FM channel with WXVU at nearby Villanova University since 1991. I’d known of this time-share arrangement for many years and my own alma mater station WHRC had even made attempts […]
On March 17, I’ll be speaking at the WTJU/WXTJ-hosted symposium “College Radio: Then, Now, and Next” at the University of Virginia. Specifically, I’ll touch on the history of college radio as well as the state of college radio today. I’m excited to connect with friends, colleagues, and representatives from other college radio stations and am […]
My grand tour of Arkansas radio stations concluded with a trip to see KUHS-LP in Hot Springs. Host of the 2016 Grassroots Radio Conference (GRC), KUHS-LP is a new, solar-powered low power FM (LPFM) station, having launched over 97.9 FM in August, 2015. As far as field trips, my visit to KUHS was different from […]
On the podcast this week, we talked about the uncertainty at CMJ and pontificated on why charts can be useful to radio stations and the music industry, including record labels, promoters and bands. I was thinking about those connections as I read musician Mike Ness’ statements about the importance of college radio in a Boulder […]
When I arrived at community radio station KABF in Little Rock, Arkansas on the afternoon of October 7, 2016, I was embarking on my fifth radio station visit in a 24-hour period. A bit delirious from my cross-country and cross-state travels, I became immediately re-energized after spotting a trio of friends waiting for me outside […]
For at least the past year there have been more regular grumblings about the status of CMJ and this week Pitchfork is reporting that, “For the second week in a row, CMJ has not published its weekly college radio charts, calling into question the fate of an institution that has tracked the music played by college stations around […]
Happy World Radio Day! In honor of this annual celebration, I’m exploring Radio.Garden and listening to stations from all over the world. Launched just two months ago on December 13, 2016, Radio Garden is a website where one can navigate to streams from different stations by mousing over a globe. It reminds me a bit […]
Earlier this week, Pitchfork published a long-form piece with the provocative title, Does College Radio Even Matter Anymore? The sub-head continues the theme, adding, “How left-of-the-dial stalwarts are fighting to stay alive.” Click-bait for college radio fans and practitioners, the article is actually more nuanced than its alarmist descriptors suggest. (more…)
I was disappointed to hear that University of Washington, Bothell’s college radio station UWave (see my 2014 tour here) is facing opposition to its planned move to a low power FM (LPFM) channel. Although the station has a construction permit from the FCC for the new LPFM station, University of Washington officials told students that […]
After waking before dawn and grabbing breakfast at a nearby Waffle House (we don’t have them in California!), I began a beautiful drive from Fayetteville, Arkansas to Clarksville, in order to see college radio station KUOZ-LP at University of the Ozarks. Lyrics to the Monkees song “the Last Train to Clarksville” kept swirling in my […]
