Adam Yauch, also known as MCA, of the Beastie Boys passed away from cancer today at the age of 47. Although I knew Yauch had been battling cancer for the last few years, the news still hit me as a shock. I started to think about how my relationship to Yauch and his bandmates’ music […]
Archive | Noncommercial Radio
College Radio 50 State Tour – South Carolina’s WSBF
On my Spinning Indie blog I have an ambitious project in which I’m trying to profile a college radio station from each of the 50 states in the U.S. I started the series in October, 2008, when I took my first virtual trip to KXUA in Arkansas. I managed to get to 15 states total […]
Wellesley College Celebrates 70 Years of College Radio on Campus
Not many college radio stations can lay claim to 70 years of broadcasting, so it’s exciting to hear that student radio has been a part of campus life at Wellesley College since 1942. The first station, WBS 730 AM, launched in 1942 and was apparently the first all-woman college radio station. Eventually that station evolved […]
Pacifica radio Executive Director: we are out of money for elections
In a special meeting of the Pacifica National Board held on Thursday, April 26, Pacifica Executive Director Arlene Engelhardt dropped this long overdue bombshell. “I just am very concerned where we are going to come up with a quarter of a million dollars to run an election this year,” she told the Board. This is […]
College Radio History Lesson: KUOI’s 1945 beginnings at University of Idaho
I’ve spent the past through days digging through college radio history artifacts and it’s been inspiring to read about the passion and energy that has gone into building radio stations on campuses across the country since the 1920s. University of Idaho’s free form college radio station, KUOI, started up in 1945 and was a descendent […]
FCC drops non-commercial radio fundraising item from Friday’s meeting
Wednesday the FCC announced that it’s dropping from Friday’s open meeting an item addressing non-commercial radio stations’ ability to fundraise on-air for other non-profit organizations. The item appears to deal with stations raising money for efforts like disaster relief. But, as I wrote earlier this month, this rulemaking might also address non-commercial stations being operated […]
Students Occupy Camosun College Radio Station to Protest Cuts
This week students at Camosun College in Victoria, British Columbia took over the campus radio station, VillageNow.net, in order to protest cuts to the radio program. According to an article in the Vancouver Sun, “College president Kathryn Laurin announced the suspension of the applied communication program last week in a round of deep cuts to […]
Family Radio’s WKDN Morphs into All-Hannity Radio after Sale to Merlin
Yesterday, Camden, New Jersey radio station WKDN made a radical change in programming, switching from Family Radio to Hannity@106.9 FM Radio following the the station’s sale to Merlin Media for $22.5 million. Listeners to WKDN in the Philadelphia-area could hear Family Radio’s religious programming transitioning to a loop of the R.E.M. song “It’s the End […]
Radio Break Utilizes Low Power Radio to Broadcast Art Across Los Angeles
Over the weekend the public art exhibition Radio Break opened in Los Angeles. Curated by 9 University of Southern California (USC) graduate students, the performances in this exhibit all utilize low power radio transmissions. Last weekend performances and transmissions took place in downtown and East L.A. and this weekend they will occur in Hollywood and […]
KZSU Brings Back Radio Drama with “Our American Cousin” Tonight
To commemorate the 147th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, a crew of DJs at Stanford University’s college radio station KZSU will be performing a special radio drama tonight. KZSU’s adaptation of “Our American Cousin,” the play that Lincoln was watching when he was shot, will air on 90.1 FM (and stream on their website) tonight […]