Ain’t No Pirate Ship: Tugboat Produces Radio from Willamette River
There’s a new radio studio docked on the shores of the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon’s St. John’s neighborhood, but this ain’t no pirate ship. A 1940s steam-powered tugboat is the new home of Steam Radio Syndicate, which made its debut broadcast on community station KBOO last Friday night. As Oregon Live reported, The show […]
Maybe Think Of Me Once in a While… WKRP Reunion This Wednesday
Funnily enough, just last night I was channel surfing and settled in to a WKRP in Cincinnati rerun (the program is one of Jennifer’s top 5 TV shows depicting radio). This one tackled the very serious issue of payola, wherein a new morning DJ is gifted some cocaine from a record promoter, and has to […]
What would 1906 have thought of Pandora?
I was rummaging around the early recording industry trade journal Talking Machine World the other day, and ran into an item that reminded me of a recent Pandora innovation: its mobile alarm clock feature. The Internet Archive has copies of TMW from the Progressive Era through the 1920s. I quote from a January 1906 edition […]
Do local zoning committees have say over Low Power FM signals?
There’s an interesting conversation happening at our Radio Survivor discussion forum. Forum member Paul writes: “We have an FCC license for a LPFM for our community. While seeking a permit to construct a tower, the zoning committee expressed a concern that function of the wireless telephones, cell phones, TVs, etc., in our area would be interfered […]
College Radio Watch: Documents Reveal Earlier Attempts by GPB to Take Over WRAS Airtime
Georgia State University’s student newspaper, The Signal, has been doing some sleuthing into the backstory behind the impending Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) takeover of the daytime schedule for Georgia State’s student radio station WRAS-FM. It was very interesting to see that a 2008 offer from GPB got turned down by Georgia State. In an April […]
Haverford College Celebrates 90th Anniversary of Student Radio on Campus
This weekend I’ll be immersing myself in college radio history during some special events honoring the 90th anniversary of student radio at Haverford College (see the full alumni weekend schedule here). I’m hopeful that many alumni will attend, as I’m looking forward to learning even more about the storied past of the many stations at […]
PRX Wins This American Life, Good News for All Indie Producers
Like an episode of the “Public Radio Dating Game” (or “Pubcast Bachelor” if you prefer a more contemporary reference), five distributors vied for the hand of This American Life. But after all the wining and dining, questions and answers, and slow, slow dances, Ira Glass and company have chosen the Public Radio Exchange. According to […]
LPFM News: Low-Power FM on the Next FCC Meeting Agenda
In perhaps the slowest week in LPFM news so far this year, only two additional applications were approved. They went to the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, in Tulsa, and the Fayette Community Service Organization in Fayette, Mississippi. This doesn’t mean that low-power FM isn’t still on the front burner. The FCC’s five commissioners–along with […]
Podcasting News: From Broadcast to Podcast
In this week’s podcasting news updates there are two new podcasting networks. One comes from the mainstream public radio world, while the other comes from the universe of local commercial morning shows. PRI Launches SoundWorks Public Radio International is catching up with NPR and PRX by starting its own podcast network. According to the network […]
It’s official: boring classical public radio format ensconced in Nashville
Last Friday Nashville Public Radio paid the cash necessary to finalize its ownership of WFCL Classical 91.1 FM, once Vanderbilt University’s vibrant student run radio station. I, a classical music/classical radio lover, decided to tune into the signal today and look the website over. Here’s my review: Zzzzzzzzzz. Yes, just what the world needs, another […]