The FCC is currently down one commissioner due to Republican Meredith Atwell Baker stepping aside last spring. Democrat Michael Copps is on an “extended term” that is set to end at the end of this Congressional term. So the FCC is due to be getting by on just three commissioners by the time the new […]
The first national test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) will take place next Wednesday, November 9th at 11am Pacific time. According to a letter issued by the FCC today: “The test will occur simultaneously across the United States and the U.S. territories and will last approximately 30 seconds, after which regular programming will resume. […]
Today the FCC released two lists containing the total number of licensed broadcast stations in the United States. Despite the crowded radio dial, the number of licensed radio stations increased between June and September, 2011. According to the FCC, as of September 30, 2011 (PDF), there were 14,865 radio stations in the U.S. That represents […]
I am reading Representative Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, and it scares the heck out of me. Like the oft-criticized Protect IP Act making its way through the Senate, the House bill is ostensibly designed to stop pirate content sites by allowing the U.S. Attorney General to get a court order forcing […]
The New York Times reports that Clear Channel is laying off radio deejays across the country, perhaps in the hundreds. These include Tony Lynn and Myles Copeland of Clear Channel Albuquerque country music station KBQI, shown in the YouTube video below. But two weeks before the story came out, the radio giant once again asked […]
At yesterday’s open meeting the FCC released a new proposal to “modernize” public inspection files at television broadcast stations [PDF]. The biggest change proposed is to have the FCC host the files on its own website rather than have each broadcaster use its own website. As expected, the Commission also vacated a 2007 order that […]
On Friday, the FCC posted a notice that a forfeiture order (PDF) for $10,000 was issued to Pirate Cat Radio founder Daniel “Monkey Man” Roberts for “willfully and repeatedly violating section 301 of the Communications Act of 1934…by operating an unlicensed radio broadcast station” in San Francisco. The letter is a follow-up to an earlier […]
The good news is that Occupy DC participant Lisa Simeone will retain her job as host of NPR World of Opera. The This is NPR blog has a brief notice mentioning that World of Opera sponsor WDAV will keep Simeone on. She came under fire yesterday for her participation in the Occupy Wall Street related […]
The public file is a an actual file of paper documents that every broadcast station is required to maintain in its main office. In it are records like a copy of the station’s license and ownership report, along with a quarterly Issues and Programming report which is supposed to detail public service programming. Although very […]
This just in from the This is NPR blog. We recently learned of World of Opera host Lisa Simeone’s participation in an Occupy DC group. World of Opera is produced by WDAV, a music and arts station based in Davidson, North Carolina. The program is distributed by NPR. Lisa is not an employee of NPR […]
