Podcast #266 – Flirt FM Celebrates 25 Years of College & Community Radio in Ireland
Flirt FM at the National University of Ireland at Galway was one of the first “community of interest” stations to go on the air in that nation. Effectively, this means it was a trailblazing college and community station, hitting the air not long after the state broadcast monopoly began to erode in 1988. Andrew Ó […]
Virtual Grassroots Radio Conference Kicks off Friday, Oct. 9
Though I’m disappointed I won’t be traveling to Louisville this year, host station ARTxFM has assembled a really impressive online Grassroots Radio Conference for 2020. None other than Public Enemy’s inimitable MC Chuck D will deliver the first keynote on Friday night, titled “And You Don’t Stop Radio.” WFMU’s stalwart station manager and streaming radio […]
Podcast #265 – Inside the “Little Known” Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for Global Media
Over the past few months, there’s been a flurry of media attention focused on the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Some reports describe it as a “little-known” agency and, in fact, it may seem mysterious to many in the United States, since it oversees international broadcasting programs all over the world, including Voice […]
Podcast # 264 – Joe Boyd
Joe Boyd is best known as a record producer (he worked with Pink Floyd and Nick Drake just to name two artists) and he is the author of the book “White Bicycles, Making Music in the 1960’s.” In 2015 he launched a podcast. Joe Boyd’s A-Z which ran for 52 episodes (that’s one episode for […]
Social Distancing Sparks Interest in Part 15 Unlicensed Broadcasting, but Caveat Emptor
It seems that social distancing has made unlicensed Part 15 radio a bit more popular. “Part 15” refers to the part of the US broadcast regulations that cover unintended transmissions and radio frequency interference. Essentially, this means tiny radio signals whose transmission can’t be avoided or are negligible. It also covers tiny radio transmitters, like […]
Podcast #263 – Broadcasting High School Radio through Wildfires and a Pandemic
With wildfires raging up and down the west coast of the United States amid the coronavirus pandemic, many radio stations are facing different types of challenges than a year ago. Vacaville Christian Schools’ radio station KVCB-LP (aka VCS Radio) is in a community that was hit hard by a wild fire in August 2020. When […]
Podcast #262 – Eric Nuzum (rebroadcast)
Eric Nuzum started NPR’s podcasting efforts in 2005. He worked at NPR for over a decade and helped produce hit shows like “TED Radio Hour” and “Invisibila.” He left NPR for Audible, where he led Amazons efforts in short form audio and podcasts until 2018. Eric Nuzum is the author of the book “Make Noise: […]
The Vast of Night: a vast 1950s community radio/telecom fantasia
“The Vast of Night is a movie that takes its time, and thus serves as a wonderful reminder that every generation has its cutting edge telecom landscape, run by people who in their minds and hearts live in the future.”
Podcast #261 – Remembering Lorenzo Milam
Jennifer, Eric and Paul get the gang back together to remember community radio innovator Lorenzo Milam, who passed away on July 19. We reflect on how he helped to propagate a community access model of broadcasting that departed somewhat from the model of the first Pacifica stations, and was reflective of the counter-cultural currents of […]
Podcast #260 – Radio History on the Northern Border of Mexico
Border radio is one of our favorite topics at Radio Survivor and on this week’s episode we dig into the history of radio broadcasting on the northern border of Mexico. Scholar Sonia Robles shares the stories of some of the lesser-known, small broadcasters whose histories are often overshadowed by the wild tales of higher power […]