Lou Reed, composer of fine-fine-fine-fine music, is dead at 71
Velvet Underground legend Lou Reed has died. I cannot do his remarkable life justice in this brief post, but note that Reed wrote one of my favorite songs about radio: “Rock ‘n Roll.” “Jenny said, when she was just five years old you know there’s nothin’ happening at all Every time she put on the […]
Is College Radio Making a Comeback?
An article on PolicyMic, 4 Awesome College Stations Keeping Radio Alive, posits that college radio was in a downward spiral and is now in a period of renaissance. After author Chelsea Hawkins takes a look at some recent CMJ-award-winning college radio stations, she surmises, “Two years ago, it looked like student radio was heaving its […]
Monitoring Times ends 33 years of publication, The Spectrum Times to take its place
The SWLing Post tips us off to a changing of the guard in one corner of the radio publication world. Monitoring Times is the magazine that has served enthusiasts tuning in to all manner of radio signals, from shortwave, AM and FM to the obscure territories of longwave, amateur satellite and military communications. After 33 […]
Number of AM radio stations down; FM stations up; FM translators down
The latest broadcast station count from the Federal Communications Commission is out. Quick headline: AM stations down; FM stations up. And the numbers please . . . “AM STATIONS 4728 FM COMMERCIAL 6613 FM EDUCATIONAL 3989” Those figures are as of September 30, 2013. When Radio Survivor’s Jennifer Waits looked into the situation in January, the […]
Indie stations and indie musicians working together? An immodest proposal
This piece originally appeared in our free weekly email newsletter, the Radio Survivor Bulletin. Sign up now to get a digest of important and insightful links and commentary about the future of radio. I’ve been giving some thought to the relationship between musicians and radio. In particular, I’m interested in independent artists and labels and […]
![Students being dragged down the stairs during the May 1960 HUAC protests [source: foundsf.org]](https://www.radiosurvivor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/huacstairs-250x125.jpg "The KCBS reporter who informed for the FBI")
The KCBS reporter who informed for the FBI
I am reading Seth Rosenfeld’s extraordinary book Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power. There are many radio references in the 734 page tome. Among the most interesting to me are mentions of KCBS radio reporter Dick Leonard, who offered “clandestine help” to the Federal Bureau of Investigation after the […]
Final schedule for Future of Music Summit released, features discussions important for radio
The final schedule has been released for the Future of Music Summit, happening next Monday and Tuesday, October 28 – 29. The agenda for the 12th annual summit features 20 sessions and events with more than 50 speakers, advocates, musicians and experts on the music industry. When I spoke to Future of Music Coalition interim […]
“More dirtbags” on public radio podcasts & more podcasting wisdom from RadioVision
Here at Radio Survivor we firmly believe that podcasts are a form of radio, and for many listeners that’s how they hear their favorite broadcast shows, from This American Life to Elvis Duran. Podcasting also was a prime topic at this year’s WFMU RadioVision festival, held this past Saturday, October 19 in New York City. […]
Radio Survivor launches discussion forums site
We’ve been talking about this for a while, and at last it has happened. Radio Survivor has fired up a forums site: radiosurvivorforums.com. The beta site has three forum topics for starters: College Radio, Low Power FM, and Indie Internet Radio. Why the new venue? First—to get some kind of discussion system up that isn’t […]
Classical Radio Station Deals Hint at Consolidation in Public Radio
A lengthy article on The Deal Pipeline outlines some of the recent public radio transactions involving classical music radio stations in particular. For those of us who have monitored the deals mentioned in the piece, it’s a fascinating overview of what seems like increasing consolidation in public radio. Of interest to me, since I have […]