Ousted Exec Dir Summer Reese’s Pacifica Occupation Comes to an End
Occupy Pacifica comes to end, at least for now. On Monday an Alameda County judge issued a temporary restraining order against fired Pacifica Executive Director Summer Reese [PDF], enjoining her from “entering, blocking ingress into or egress from, or the passage of persons into or out of” Pacifica Foundation’s national office in Berkeley, CA. Reese […]
WJFF’s CPB fine and the importance of open advisory board meetings
Dedicated Corporation for Public Broadcasting watchers all know by now that “Radio Catskill” station WJFF-FM in New York has been hit with a $15k fine for violating the CPB’s rules about Community Advisory Board meetings. WJFF collected over $90,000 in CPB grants in 2010 and 2011, but dropped the ball on public notice of its CAB […]
FCC Chair Wheeler Shuffles Open Internet Deck Ahead of Meeting
This is a tough week to be Tom Wheeler, Chairman of the FCC. This Thursday he has an open meeting where he plans to present his Open Internet proposal to the full Commission. As details have come to light a very broad coalition of companies, organizations and legislators–from 150 tech firms like Netflix and Google […]
What Apple Should Do To Make Beats Music Successful
Late last week the news broke that Apple is buying Beats Audio for $3.2 billion. As most observers have noted, this is an unusually large acquisition for Apple, which tends not to buy companies that already have such prominent brands, for so much money. With the Beats acquisition Apple gets a successful audio company selling […]
Blowing in the wind? Pandora to launch Kleenex music channel
Pandora is now experimenting with channels sponsored by Kleenex, Taco Bell, and Sketchers. These are called Promoted Stations. Here’s the dope straight from the source: “Listeners that are part of the beta launch will have these stations auto-populate, one station at a time, in the ‘Stations You Might Like’ sections of their playlists. This allows […]
College Radio Watch: WRAS-FM Changes Spark Protests
The big college radio news this week is of course the format changes coming to WRAS-FM. On Tuesday, WRAS-FM student staffers were surprised to hear that they would soon lose programming control over the station’s daytime FM broadcasts. Georgia State University entered into a deal with Georgia Public Broadcasting that will allow the public radio […]
Songbot Radio Search App Is Free for Mother’s Day Weekend
If you like finding songs playing anywhere in the world with RadioSearchEngine.com, then you might enjoy a radio app that is free for Mother’s Day weekend. Songbot is a nice-looking app for iOS that works quite smoothly, with quick search and streaming. It’s normal price is $4.99. Android users can try XiiaLive, which is typically […]
LPFM Watch: New Radio Stations Coming to Military Academy and Jazz Institute, plus more LPFM News
Although there hasn’t been much LPFM news this week, the handful of newly granted construction permits represent an interesting cross-section of community groups. As of May 7, there have been 1193 applications granted. The new grantees this week include the following: Community Action Corp (Isabela, Puerto Rico) – This group has as its mission to […]
Spotify: are we listening or perseverating?
Paul Lamere’s Music Machinery blog has a revelation that caught my eye. Tracking billions of Spotify plays for a research project, the Development Platform Director for The Echo Nest reports that almost one in four Spotify users will skip a song within the first five seconds of play. The probability that the content will be skipped […]
Lessons from a Year of Podcasting, Mike Pesca’s The Gist Debuts
Before I dive in, I’d like to mention a short piece that comes from The Fizzle Show podcast, which is “for people building their thing online.” The show recently had its first anniversary, and on the 52nd episode the hosts shared “24 lessons learned in a year of podcasting.” It’s both a lighthearted and useful […]