Breakthrough for college radio? FCC rethinks rule violation fines
The Federal Communications Commission says that it will ease up on the fines that it issues college radio stations when they violate the Commission’s procedures and rules, such as failure to submit ownership reports or adequately maintain a public inspection file. Now, rather than punish such stations with a Notice of Apparent Liability followed by […]
Radio Station Scavenger Hunt – Genre Charts Part 1
Last week I started my new Radio Survivor Scavenger Hunt series, in which I’m sharing pictures of items that I’ve spotted at radio stations during my travels. The first week focused on station graffiti and this week’s quest will reveal a range of music genre charts that I’ve seen at stations. Interestingly, many non-commercial stations […]
WMBR DJ’s 8-hour Radio Marathon during Boston Lockdown
I hadn’t really given much thought to how DJs in Boston coped with the the lockdown during the search for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect until I read a fascinating story about a college radio DJ at M.I.T. radio station WMBR in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jon Bernhardt, the long-time host of the Friday morning edition of […]
Radio Station Scavenger Hunt – Station Graffiti Part 5
As I complete this week’s radio station scavenger hunt, my final station stop is to Stanford University’s station KZSU. When I visited in 2009, I didn’t see much graffiti. In fact, the station had a strong anti-graffiti policy as noted on the sign pictured above. At the time, graffiti seemed to be confined to this […]
Yiddish or highbrow? WEVD’s uneasy bilingual history
I am reading Ari Y. Kelman’s excellent book, Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio in the United States, and agreeing with the admonition found in the tome’s introduction: radio historians don’t focus enough on non-English speaking broadcasters. “The presence of non-English language programming on U.S. radio has been almost completely overlooked,” Kelman writes. […]
Slacker Radio adds 6 million users since February relaunch
On Thursday Slacker Radio announced that it added 6 million listeners since the service relaunched with a new design in February. That’s when Slacker upped the ante with unlimited free listening to its streaming, curated stations on PCs and mobile devices, in addition to an interface overhaul. These stations include news and sports from ABC […]
Community radio will come to Channel Islands
The United Kingdom’s broadcast regulatory agency says that it has authorized the licensing of community radio stations on the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes the islands of Alderney and Sark, all part of the Channel Islands. This is a bit complicated, because Guernsey, which is located off the coast of northern France, is not actually […]
Radio Station Scavenger Hunt – Station Graffiti Part 4
This week I started a new Radio Station Scavenger Hunt series. As I’ve searched through the hundreds of photos that I’ve taken at nearly 50 radio station visits, it’s become clear that there are certain items that are frequently found at a range of different stations. In the past I’ve written about the 5 things […]
Radio Station Scavenger Hunt – Station Graffiti Part 3
In this new Radio Station Scavenger Hunt series, I will uncover some of my favorite items that have been spotted at radio stations all over the country. This week I’ve been posting photos of graffiti found at various radio stations. On Monday, the graffiti was from Lewis and Clark college radio station KLC in Portland. […]
Radio Station Scavenger Hunt – Station Graffiti Part 2
In this new Radio Station Scavenger Hunt series, I will uncover some of my favorite items that have been spotted at radio stations all over the country. Yesterday I shared a picture of graffiti from the Lewis and Clark college radio station KLC in Portland. Today’s picture is from KSFS at San Francisco State University. […]