Pirate Radio Round-Up: FCC sniffs out FM, shortwave & CB stations; Chicago’s unsolved Max Headroom mystery
Every so often I like to do a round-up of events in unlicensed broadcasting. In this update we have a review of FCC actions against unlicensed broadcasters, including one on the shortwave band and another on the CB band, good buddy. Plus, there’s an investigation into one of the country’s most notorious TV pirates. Sniffing […]
Fifteen groups apply for one Low Power FM frequency in Los Angeles
No less than fifteen different organizations have applied for a single Low Power FM signal in Los Angeles, California: 101.5 FM. I would not want to be the Federal Communications Commission staff person who has to decide which of these groups get access to that frequency. Here are some excerpts from their application statements. Future […]
Podcast Survivor: Scharpling passes the torch, Stitcher announces 2nd annual awards
This week’s biggest podcasting news is that WFMU has found a suitable personality to take over The Best Show’s soon-to-be-vacant timeslot, but there’s more for the podcast enthusiast and producer alike. Scharpling Passes the Best Torch to Hill It’s a changing of the guard at New Jersey’s freeform WFMU. Last month Best Show host Tom […]
LPFM Applicants in San Francisco to Compete with East Bay and Peninsula Groups
The competition for a new low power FM (LPFM) radio license in San Francisco is even tougher than I thought. Earlier this week I took a look at the 15 applicants who are seeking LPFM licenses in San Francisco proper. It turns out, if one looks outside the city, there are additional applications for the […]
LPFM update: making sense of 2,799 applications
LPFM advocates have had about four full days to mine the FCC’s database of applications from the filing window. Broadcast engineering firms Skywaves and REC Networks both put the exact count of applications at 2,799, which is fewer than the 2,819 I reported last week. According to the CommLawBlog the difference can be accounted for […]
There’s already a petition to save Winamp, but what about Shoutcast?
The fates of the veteran media player app Winamp and its related Shoutcast streaming platform remain in limbo after AOL’s announcement last week that it would shut down Nullsoft and end support of these products. Although there have been reports that Microsoft is in talks to buy both Winamp and Shoutcast, neither company has commented […]
In San Francisco, 15 Applicants Vie for New Low Power FM Radio Licenses
Now that the FCC has loaded up its database with all of the new low power FM (LPFM) hopefuls that applied during the window earlier this month, many of us are having a field day sifting through the data to see who is in the running for new stations. As I mentioned on Friday, many […]
What Turntable.fm accomplished
Turntable.fm‘s latest blog post reached my inbox on Friday. It focused on Turntable Live, a new feature in which Turntable room participants interact on a real time basis with bands. Then came this last distressing paragraph: “As much as we all love turntable.fm, we have decided to shut it down to fully concentrate on the […]
Commercial classical radio: a long view
After reading our story about the end of a commercial classical music radio station in North Carolina, Fred Krock sent us this reflection on his career working in radio. I began working for a major market commercial classical music station in 1953. All major markets and many smaller markets had a commercial classical music station […]
Bakersfield Burrito! 21 Low Power FM license applications to watch
Perusing through the Federal Communications Commission’s database of pending new Low Power FM applications, I see many worthy contenders. But I would like to be a fly on the wall when the FCC considers the following organizations. What caught my eye are their names: The Global Service Center for Quitting Chinese Communist Party is among […]