I’ve been thumbing through a couple of bound editions of IBS’ The Journal of College Radio from 1970 to 1972 and it’s an incredible look at college radio in that era. Concerns of the day included potential policy changes for carrier-current broadcasters, questions about the FCC’s rules on obscenity (not much has changed!), and excitement […]
Editor’s note: Shortly after I posted my first story about the proposed sale of KUSP in Santa Cruz to the Classical Public Radio Network, Rachel Anne Goodman and I began corresponding about the prospect. Goodman teaches journalism at Cabrillo College in Aptos. By her own description she has “been a radio host on one station or another since […]
An exciting envelope recently arrived in the mail, containing a stack of vintage college radio station playlists from the 1970s and 1980s. Mostly handwritten or typed on typewriters, the “music surveys” capture lists of the most recently added music to these station’s libraries. Sometimes broken down by genre or divided by different types of rotation […]
As I wrote in LPFM Watch yesterday, it’s thrilling to see the increasing number of college radio stations with new low power FM (LPFM) construction permits. With the addition of Reed College and Drury University this week, that brings the total number of granted LPFM construction permits for colleges and universities (from the 2013 application […]
This year the National Federation for Community Broadcasters is holding regional summits instead of one big national conference. The registration price is lower, and travel should be easier and less expensive for most people. Therefore they’re great opportunities for community broadcasters, especially new LPFM stations, to meet likeminded radio-makers and take advantage of what the […]
This week ten more groups were granted construction permits for new low power FM (LPFM) radio stations. I’m thrilled to see two colleges and one school district in the mix, as not many schools have received grants in the past few months. By my count, 76 colleges/universities have now received new LPFM construction permits (out […]
The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports that public radio station KUSP has taken a major step towards selling its license. On Monday KUSP’s board, staff, and volunteers approved a letter of intent to offer it to the Classical Public Radio Network for $1 million. CPRN owns classical radio station KDFC in San Francisco and is headquartered […]
It’s sort of a weird coincidence that in the past few months I visited radio stations at two different institutions called Bellarmine. I wrote about my trip to see Bellarmine College Preparatory’s AM station KBCP in San Jose, California a few weeks ago and now I’m covering my visit to Bellarmine University’s radio station, Bellarmine […]
The Pew Research Center released its annual State of the News Media report for 2015. One fact struck me that I haven’t seen otherwise commented on elsewhere: only 30 Spanish-language radio stations in the US air news and talk programming, out of more than 500 Spanish-language format stations total. That’s seems really low to me. […]
I spend a lot of time rummaging around SoundCloud. Some of this energy goes into following the service’s engagingly sporadic use by community radio stations. WFMU in New Jersey, for example, has a SoundCloud page titled WFMU Marathon. “Share an MP3 only (for size & compatibility) telling us what you love about WFMU,” the account requests. […]
