California Historical Radio Society’s Video Tour of Radio History
On its recently launched You Tube channel, The California Historical Radio Society is archiving a treasure trove of materials related to radio history. Included are some “Living History Series” interviews with radio luminaries like Carter B. Smith, Terry McGovern, Rosie Allen, Ben Fong-Torres and Stan Burford. Additional videos chronicle various events from Radio Day by […]
Podcasting News: LA Festival this weekend, Podcast Awards nominations open
The second annual Los Angeles Podcast Festival happens this weekend, Oct. 4 – 6. Since L.A. seems to be home to the greatest density of well-known comedy podcasters, that is also the general emphasis of the festival, featuring appearances from comedian hosts like Marc Maron, Doug Benson, Greg Fitzsimmons and Jimmy Pardo. The festival will […]
Time for you to write a radio play for BBC World Drama
The 24th BBC World Service International Radio Playwriting Competition is open, and I want more Radio Survivor readers to enter the contest. The Holy Grail is one of two first prizes (which include cash, BTW): a best play written by someone who knows English as a First Language or a best play written by someone […]
Bill would create royalty market for broadcaster payments to musicians
North Carolina Representative Mel Watt introduced a new bill to tackle music performance royalties for terrestrial radio this week. His timing isn’t the greatest however, as the government shutdown certainly threatens to overshadow his Free Market Royalty Act. As its name implies the Free Market Royalty Act would create a market wherein broadcasters and copyright […]
Advice for radio mice: don’t break FCC indecency rules during the shutdown
The Federal Communications Commission’s website is mostly down for the duration of the Federal government funding outage. Looks like the whole application filing system is temporarily kaput, which is probably bad news for the impending Low Power FM window, but we’ll have to see how long this crisis lasts. In the meantime, we are noticing […]
United Kingdom opens second Community Radio Fund window
Round two of applications for the United Kingdom’s Community Radio Fund 2013/14 will begin on Wednesday October 9 and will close about a month later on November 6. The first round concluded in mid-July. The window is being run by the UK’s Ofcom agency, roughly equivalent to the United States’ Federal Communications Commission. As with the […]
President Barack Obama Praises Student Radio for College Radio Day
The impending government shut-down didn’t stop President Barack Obama from penning some kind words about college radio in advance of World College Radio Day on October 1, 2013. In a letter submitted to College Radio Day organizers, Obama writes: “I send greetings to all those participating in World College Radio Day 2013. Since its beginnings, […]
Pacifica to carry Feature Story News to fill void left by FSRN closure
With the closure of Free Speech Radio News this past Friday, Pacifica stations and some 100 community radio affiliates are left with a half-hour hole in their schedules. This weekend Pacifica announced that beginning today the network will be carrying a half-hour broadcast of Feature Story News where FSRN used to be. For some community […]
Reports say at least a dozen independent radio stations broadcasting in Syria
While Syria’s bloody civil war increasingly looks like a stalemate, and the US has held off on retaliatory bombing in favor of chemical weapons inspections, brave broadcasters are taking risks to bring free flowing information and news to the people of Syria through their radio dials. Where the local press is tightly controlled by the […]
Will a government shutdown delay the FCC’s Low Power FM window?
As the United States government faces a budgetary lights off switch, the Federal Communications Commission has published a Plan for Orderly Shutdown Due to Lapse of Congressional Appropriations. Here’s the plan’s bottom line: “Generally, during a shutdown all FCC activities other than those immediately necessary for the protection of life or property will cease. Suspended […]