Beyond the wild west: government and the future of music radio
Turntable.fm shut down its last component earlier this year: Turntable Live—a concert version of now gone turntable.fm. TT.fm founder Billy Chasen reflected on the end of the Turntable project in a blog entry posted on Wednesday: “Ultimately, I didn’t heed the lessons of so many failed music startups. It’s an incredibly expensive venture to pursue […]
High School Radio News Round-up: High School LPFMs, KVHS Footage from 1983, and WKHS’ 40th Anniversary
With High School Radio Day Coming up on April 23, it seemed like a good time to do a round-up of recent high school radio news. First and foremost, it’s been thrilling to see that so many school districts and high schools are in the running for new LPFM licenses. One such group, Jasper High […]
50th Anniversary Celebrations for Radio Caroline, the UK’s 1st Pirate Rock N Roll Ship
March 27 is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Radio Caroline, the infamous pirate radio ship that brought rock n’ roll to the UK airwaves and sparked many a pirate radio fantasy thereafter. On that day in 1964 Radio Caroline began broadcasting with a test transmission. Broadcasts Aboard a ship In Liverpool the Mersey […]
College Radio Survivor: Radio Revived at WRAM, More Award Opportunities & Other News
This week, there were some interesting developments on the college radio front. The FCC finally closed the books on the contested future of the former Vanderbilt University FM radio station WRVU. Despite protests by supporters of the FM station, the license was assigned to Nashville Public Radio this week. For nearly three years, the station […]
Caribbean Radio Histories
I love learning about both radio history and international radio, so was pleased to see an analysis of the early history of Caribbean radio on the Sounding Out! blog this week. Part of a 4-part series focused on radio broadcasting in the Caribbean and South America, Alejandra Bronfman’s article, Radio de Accion: Violent Circuits, Contentious […]
Radio and Podcasting Events at 2014 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference
There’s been a lot of great energy in recent years surrounding the field of sound studies, in which scholars are increasingly looking at the importance of the auditory aspects of media culture. Within the world of sound studies, a growing group of radio scholars is working hard to ensure that an academic lens is focused […]
LPFM Watch: Why 420 Apps Were Dismissed, and More News
The flow of new low-power FM construction permits is slowing to a trickle as the FCC gets towards the end of the singleton applications. Many of the 19 stations authorized in the last week require a 2nd adjacent waiver in order to be spaced a little closer to existing stations. Commensurately, a fair number of […]
XRAY.FM Brings Ultra-Low-Power Community Radio to Portland
A new very low-power FM station hit the Portland, Oregon airwaves this week. XRAY.FM is a new community station that took over the license for Reed College’s legacy class D station at 91.1 FM in 2012 with the help of Common Frequency. The station mounted a very successful Kickstarter in January. Starting with a goal […]
Can the same call letters be used by different stations?
John Bruce (jonthebru) at our discussion forum site asks: “Can call letters be used by other stations?” “We are contemplating a change in call letters associated with a change in direction for a non commercial station. (Sorry, I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag so I can’t share details at this […]
Copyright Office asks cold hard cash questions in music inquiry
The Copyright Office’s Library of Congress has launched a new Notice of Inquiry on the “effectiveness of existing methods of licensing music,” an issue dear to the heart of pretty much everybody invested in any kind of music distribution system, from AM/FM radio to Sirius XM to iTunes. “The Office will use the information it […]