Clear Channel: fixed date for digital AM conversion would be “challenging”
Federal Communications Commissioner Ajit Pai and his Chief of Staff Matthew Berry conferenced with two executives from Clear Channel on Wednesday. They talked up a variety of issues. The meeting’s last item caught my eye. I presume from the language of the filed summary that Pai asked Clear Channel Vice Presidents Jeff Littlejohn and Jessica […]
Radio Station Scavenger Hunt – Genre Color Code Signs Part 5
Wrapping up the radio station scavenger hunt for this week, I’m sharing one more music genre color code sign. This “library legend” sign comes from KFJC, where I’m a DJ. In my travels, I’ve seen incredibly complex systems for categorizing music libraries. There are often many sub-genres and different colors of tape are sometimes affixed […]
Radio Station Scavenger Hunt – Genre Color Code Signs Part 4
Mid-way through my week of radio station genre charts, I started to realize that “charts” isn’t really the most accurate way to describe the music genre signage that I’ve spotted at various radio stations. I guess it’s more appropriately a music genre categorization schematic or a legend or a key. Genre “charts” are more likely […]
Radio Station Scavenger Hunt – Genre Charts Part 3
I was probably the only person who visited Family Radio headquarters during the pre-Judgment Day media frenzy in May 2011 who was interested in seeing the guts of the network’s radio station. I got the grand tour and was intrigued to see that the long-time Christian radio network had a large collection of music. In […]
Radio Station Scavenger Hunt – Genre Charts Part 2
As part of my new Radio Station Scavenger Hunt series, I’m highlighting music genre charts this week. Yesterday’s charts were from KBOO-FM and today I turn to some equally detailed charts from college radio station KZSC-FM at University of California, Santa Cruz. Although I’ve visited KZSC twice now, it was on my last trip (for […]
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. […]