Radio Survivor Podcast #13: Why the Battle over the Pacifica Network Remains Relevant
Radio Survivor co-founder Matthew Lasar joins us this week to examine recent events at Pacifica Network’s Los Angeles station KPFK, where it’s been reported that all staff have been cut to half-time across the board. Matthew helps to put this action into perspective–especially as it regards the Pacifica Foundation’s unwieldy governance structure–and explains why Pacifica, […]
Vancouver media counting the minutes for Roundhouse Radio to go live
It could be a “scary time to be launching a media venture,” warns the Vancouver Daily Xtra in a feature about Roundhouse radio, a new commercial community station scheduled to go live in September. “[M]edia locally and globally is contracting, with independent platforms getting snapped up by conglomerates.” The times are apparently so terrifying that […]
Can Canada revive its urban Aboriginal radio service?
Canada’s broadcast regulator has put out a call for radio applications to reach urban Aboriginal communities in five cities: Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. “There is a pressing need to serve the Aboriginal community as a whole given that issues vitally important to Aboriginal Canadians are not fully covered or addressed at all in non-Native […]
College Radio Watch: Alum Calls for Return of KTRU’s Old FM License to Rice, WRAS Update + More News
Last week we reported the news that University of Houston is planning to sell the license for the former KTRU-FM frequency in Houston, Texas that it purchased from Rice University back in 2011. I’d been wondering how KTRU supporters were reacting to the news, as they waged a fierce battle in their efforts to keep […]
LPFM Watch: Hispanic Arts of Tampa Responds to Complaint Filed Against its LPFM + More News
A few weeks ago we reported on complaints being made by a commercial radio group against Tampa, Florida-area low power FM (LPFM) station WVVF-LP in reference to its choice in programming. The Beasley Media Group (BMG), which operates a 50,000 watt commercial radio station in the area (WYUU), argued that Hispanic Arts of Tampa (WVVF) […]
Notes on community radio and democracy in Delhi, India and Mkushi, Zambia
Some interesting items on community radio from two very different places. In Zambia supporters of the Patriotic Front (PF) electoral party “briefly interrupted operations” at the Mkushi Community Radio Station on Tuesday “in protest against [the] alleged political inclination of a Board Member of that Station.” That’s according to the Lusaka Times online newspaper. It’s […]
Digital Watch: Reviewing the New TuneIn Premium
TuneIn Radio has been kind of a deceptively quiet player in the online radio wars that have heated to a boiling since Apple introduced Beats 1 Radio at the end of June. Yet the service claims a user base of 60 million monthly active users who clearly find value in the service’s single-platform access to […]
RIP Student Media Advocate Dan Reimold
After publishing College Radio Watch on Friday, I was shocked to hear the news that Dan Reimold had died. I was a huge fan of Dan’s work and felt like he was a kindred spirit, with his passion and advocacy for student media. Dan was an assistant professor of journalism at St. Joseph’s University in […]
College Radio Station WVBU Penalized for Missing Public File Documents and For Moving File Away from Main Studio
Last week the FCC released details about a consent decree (PDF) with Bucknell University that resulted from public file violations at its student radio station WVBU-FM in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. The school agreed to pay a penalty of $2,200. (more…)
Visiting College Radio Station KWVA at University of Oregon
For a family vacation to the Pacific Northwest earlier this month, I proposed a road trip, in part because I hoped to see some radio stations along the way. As we set out on our second day of travel on Saturday, August 1st, our first radio destination was University of Oregon’s college radio station KWVA-FM […]