The union that represents what’s left of the radio broadcasting workforce has told the Federal Communications Commission to keep its current restrictions on how many radio stations an entity can own. The filing by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) is a reminder of how dramatically broadcast radio ownership has consolidated over […]
Author Archive | Matthew Lasar
Hey NPR: bring back the word "reactionary"
National Public Radio’s ombudsman Alicia Shephard pondered an interesting conundrum this week. What do you do when you are covering elections in a state like Utah, where just about everybody can be classified as a “conservative”? How do you grade the distinctions in conservatism? The network’s Howard Berkes decided to roll out the term “ultra-conservative” […]
Democratized Pacifica radio has spent over $2.4 million on its boards
Since democratizing itself, I estimate that Pacifica radio has spent $2,424,662 on its complex governance system and board elections. Where the heck did that money go?
Bonnie Simmons for Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame!
Attention all Bay Area Radio Survivor readers, it is time for you to go to the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame & Museum and vote for the Class of 2010’s best radio announcer. BTW: I’m urging you to vote for Bonnie Simmons of KPFA-FM. Now if you want to vote for one of the […]
Pacifica radio board elections – count me out
Opinion: It’s election season again at the Pacifica radio network. A historian of the organization explains why he’s not voting.
Pandora to hold town hall meetings in Atlanta and Denver
Pandora online radio is continuing its community meeting tour with events in Atlanta and Denver this coming week. On Monday Pandora will hold an event at the Denver Art Museum. On Tuesday the company goes to Atlanta’s Tabernacle. “Town halls are a big part of what Pandora is about,” Pandora founder Tim Westergren says on […]
How local is radio? FCC wants more data
The Federal Communications Commission is commissioning nine economic studies on the state of the media industry, and numbers five and six couldn’t come too soon as far as I’m concerned. Here they are: Study 5: Quantity of radio news and public affairs programming provided and audience for radio news programming as a function of local […]
Do radio DJs ever fall asleep on the job?
I was listening to Regina Spektor’s very sad song “On the Radio,” which I’ve never actually heard on the radio. The tune includes the following lyrics: “On the radio We heard November Rain That solo’s really long But it’s a pretty song We listened to it twice ‘Cause the DJ was asleep” Guns ‘N Roses’ […]
75 or so words you really ought to think about before you say them on UK radio
Ofcom (the United Kingdom’s equivalent of the FCC) has just published a new survey of which words British radio listeners and TV watchers don’t like, or sort of don’t like, or really object to, depending on the circumstances. The most important circumstance is whether the word was said pre- or post-“watershed”—post being the equivalent of […]
Hudson valley to get new full power community radio station
The Prometheus Radio Project will run its 12th community radio barn raising by launching a new station: WBXC in Hudson, New York on September 24-26. This is the first such event, however, that will involve setting up a full power station—3,300 watts as opposed to the usual 100 watts of low power FM. “This new […]