Holiday gift guide for radio listeners and budding podcasters
Jennifer does such a great job at rounding up an eclectic list of fun and useful radio items of all types, so I like to complement her list with a focus on radios and listening accessories (though Jennifer also helped me this year). This year I’m adding some items for the current or aspiring podcaster […]
Getting to know Piki social radio
In February of this year Jennifer Waits and I attended a social media week conference at the Adobe headquarters in San Francisco, at which Seth Goldstein of Turntable.fm spoke. During a panel on social networking radio, Goldstein critiqued his brainchild. “I wish [Turntable.fm] was more background,” he explained. “In a way I think there are […]
Penn College Radio Station WPTC Faces Uncertain Future
According to a story on WNEP, Pennsylvania College of Technology (Penn College) radio station WPTC 88.1 FM in Williamsport, Pennsylvania is facing an uncertain future after the college’s mass media major is discontinued. A petition in support of the station states, “After the Spring 2013 semester, Penn College is ending its Mass Media Communication major, […]
FCC Grants License Assignment for WFTI from Family Radio to Radio Training Network
Family Stations, which owns and operates a network of Christian radio stations under the branding Family Radio, is in the midst of completing another sale of a station in its network. Last week the FCC granted the assignment of WFTI 91.7 FM in St. Petersburg, Florida to another religious broadcaster, Radio Training Network. Family Radio […]
Anticipating the 2013 What is Radio? Conference in Portland
In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, writer Ben Fong-Torres devoted more than half of his radio column to the topic “What is Radio?” Prompted by an invitation to speak at the What is Radio? conference, Fong-Torres opted to write about the question in lieu of attending the event. I agree with Fong-Torres that it’s challenging to […]
Are you “bona fide”? Eight fun factoids from the FCC’s Low Power FM decision
If you want to understand the Federal Communications Commission’s ground breaking Low Power FM decision, your first stop is Paul Riismandel’s nice summary of the Order, posted earlier this week. I just thought I’d rummage through the document and see what additional fun tidbits and further details I could extract for my own interest, and […]
Copyright Royalty Board transitions to tiered rates for college stations
The Copyright Royalty Board has released its rates for non-commercial educational (NCE) radio stations. As the CommLaw blog notes, the significant change for college stations is the “elimination of the one-size-fits-all flat fee approach which has historically been used.” Now tithes for 2013 through 2017 will be determined by the number of full time students at […]
Clear Channel says Happy Holidays with mass firings nationwide
This is what consolidation looks like. Industry veteran Jerry DelColliano called it: hundreds of Clear Channel employees, including management like program directors and on-air talent, received pink slips Thursday. DelColliano also thinks that this move is anticipation of a possible merger. News of firings has come in from Clear Channel stations in Tampa, Denver, Detroit, […]
Free radio pioneer Stephen Dunifer warns of “LPFM deception”
Stephen Dunifer has been called the “Johnny Appleseed” of free radio for his work with Free Radio Berkeley which has been making and distributing FM transmitter kits for more than 17 years. FRB inspired many unlicensed broadcasters to take to the airwaves in the mid to late 90s, in part due to the publicity the […]
Podcasts dominate 1st annual Stitcher awards
Popular podcaster and comedian Marc Maron hosted the 2012 Stitcher Awards Tuesday night in San Francisco. 160,000 Stitcher users voted for radio shows and podcasts across 20 categories for this first installment of the awards. When I first wrote about the awards in October I wondered if they would be dominated by familiar and popular […]