Radio Guide to SXSW 2013 – Part 1: Panels, Parties and Films
Every year South by Southwest (SXSW) seems to get bigger and bigger, with a growing interactive conference, film festival, and long-time music event. The music festival begins today and runs through Sunday, March 17th. For radio fans, some of the offerings include panel discussions, radio station-sponsored events (showcases, live remote performances, etc.), and radio-related meet-ups. […]
FCC Low Power FM time sharing rules: will they work?
I am continuing to peruse the Federal Communication Commission’s latest regulations for Low Power FM stations. The FCC promises an application window around October. Some of the rules make obvious sense. Others strike me as pretty gnarly, the gnarliest among them the provisions for voluntary and involuntary time sharing of LPFM stations. I wonder how […]
![Lois Rosson [loisrosson.com]](https://www.radiosurvivor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/img_0543-e1360790477481-250x125.jpg "The art of college radio: KZSC in Santa Cruz")
The art of college radio: KZSC in Santa Cruz
By now just about every radio station has put together a website. This poses a challenge: how to be visually appealing as well as listenable. Luckily for college station KZSC at the University of California at Santa Cruz, it can tap into the skills of Lois Rosson. Lois has a double major: history and art. […]
Velvet Light Trap Seeks Papers from Sound Scholars
Radio scholarship can be found in many pockets of academia. Media studies, communications departments, cultural studies, popular culture, history, and radio-television-film programs are some of the fields where radio research takes place. In recent years, sound studies can be added to this list. The Velvet Light Trap, “a journal devoted to investigating historical questions that […]
Zimbabwe government crackdown on independent radio continues
There are reports from Zimbabwe indicating that the crackdown on independent radio is stepping up. Shortwave station SW Radio Africa reports that police in the town of Rusape went on raids of opposition party supporters looking for shortwave radios (via SWLing post). However a member of parliament said that the police found no radios. According […]
The forgotten BBC radio history of Teddy Bear’s Picnic
The other day I looked up the history of the song “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” and found an interesting radio related connection. Apparently the formative 1932 recording made by BBC band leader Henry Hall offered such fine tonal quality that the Beeb used it for three decades to keep audio equipment up to speed. One BBC […]
SHIELD Act could save podcasting
A patent troll has been threatening the future of podcasting. A company called Personal Audio owns a patent that it claims covers podcasting, and has begun contacting prominent podcasters demanding payment for licensing their patent. The patent in question was only issued in 2012, some 7 years after the widely acknowledged invention of podcasting, and […]
Occupy Boston Radio Hosts Radio Camp
Occupy Boston Radio (OBR.fm), a one-year old online radio station, is in the midst of a 2-week Radio Camp. Events kicked off with an open house last weekend and as I write this, the station is holding a workshop (“Making Radio Sound Good”) hosted by radio programmer Linda Pinkow from M.I.T. radio station WMBR. Sessions […]
Radio Scholarship Highlighted at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference
I am a radio scholarship nerd and get particularly excited when I come across other college radio scholars/theorists/historians. Today I learned that the upcoming Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Chicago (March 6-10) will feature more than a dozen papers and panels about radio. The organization also recently launched a Radio Studies Scholarly […]
At Earbits radio you promote the music, earn “Groovies,” and listen on demand
Earbits has been around for about two years, running a nice site full of curated music channels where independent artists can strut their stuff. Nothing earth shattering about this; we’ve been reviewing indie oriented streaming sites for years. But then someone got an idea. Why not reward the network’s listeners for extolling Earbit artist selections […]