Soundtap Madness College Radio Tournament Begins April 1st
Last year, the independent radio website Soundtap launched a listening competition pitting independent radio stations against one another in a series of head-to-head battles that coincided with March Madness. Dubbed Soundtap Madness, this year’s edition will include a series of two-day competitions taking place between April 1st to April 12th. Sixty-four college radio stations will […]
Navajo Technical College gearing up to acquire radio station
Associated Press reports that several prominent Southwestern tribes are well on the way to securing radio signals for their areas. These include Navajo Technical College of Crownpoint, New Mexico, which has convinced the Federal Communications Commission that its area deserves Tribal Priority consideration: Specifically, Petitioner provides evidence that: at least 50 percent of the proposed […]
KSUA Wins mtvU 2013 College Radio Woodie Award
At a ceremony which aired on Sunday, March 17th, KSUA 91.5 FM from University of Alaska, Fairbanks was awarded the 2013 mtvU College Radio Woodie award. After an initial nomination round, the most popular college radio stations (by online vote) were culled to 25 finalists. Additional online voting reduced the field to the final list […]
How television saved Janis Ian and The Beatles from radio
The other evening I was listening to KZSC, college radio for UC Santa Cruz. The deejays were pondering Michelle Shocked’s bizarre homophobic outburst at Yoshis in San Francisco (and for which she has apologized). As if to cleanse their palettes of this incident, they played a relatively early Janis Ian tune: “At Seventeen.” Suddenly I […]
Three smart ideas from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters’ “5×5” plan
For reasons that remain a mystery to me (and I’m sure others), the Board of Directors of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters has dismissed NFCB President, Maxie Jackson. An article in Current quotes a very unhappy Vice President Ginny Berson confiding that she’d been told “style issues” and differences in vision prompted the ouster. […]
Should KGO 810’s coat-of-arms be a turnstile?
The San Francisco Chronicle‘s Andrew Ross is scratching his head at the latest changes at endlessly changing KGO AM 810 in that city. “If you’ve enjoyed listening to my Chronicle colleague C.W. Nevius on KGO Radio for the past 15 months, be sure to tune in Friday,” Ross bemusedly noted earlier this week. “It’s his […]
Cambodian radio activist to be released
Cambodian dissident Mam Sonando should be released from prison soon (the news reports say Saturday and it is approaching midnight there as I write this post from San Francisco). Sonando’s Bee Hive radio outlet regularly protests the huge timber land grabs being orchestrated by relatives of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and other government top […]
Voice of Russia broadcasting to the US on HD Radio
Looking for an alternative perspective on world news on your FM dial? If you live in Chicago or Washington, DC you can now tune in the Russian government’s Voice of Russia service, which began broadcasting English language programming at the beginning of March on the HD2 channel of WTOP-FM in DC, a news-talk station, and […]
Radio Guide to SXSW 2013 – Part 2: Radio Station Showcases
With the music portion of the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival launching today, there are numerous panels, films, and events for radio fans to choose from. In addition to that, many radio stations have traveled to Austin in order to curate music showcases, interview bands, and broadcast live performances. Starting tomorrow (Wednesday, March 13, […]