KPFA: scenes from Occupy Oakland
In its normative helter skelter way, Pacifica radio is providing ongoing coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Several weeks ago I posted a piece critical of New York station WBAI’s lack of live coverage of the activities in Zuccoti Park and elsewhere around the area. Since then ‘BAI has launched Occupy Wall Street Radio […]
College Radio in the Spotlight
I’m always immersed in the world of college radio, but the past few weeks have taken my college radio immersion to another level, with back-to-back college radio conferences consuming my schedule. First up was the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City, followed by the College Broadcasters, Inc. (CBI) conference in Orlando, Florida. Although both […]
FCC Prepares Stations for National EAS Test on November 9th
The first national test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) will take place next Wednesday, November 9th at 11am Pacific time. According to a letter issued by the FCC today: “The test will occur simultaneously across the United States and the U.S. territories and will last approximately 30 seconds, after which regular programming will resume. […]
Guess How Many Licensed Radio Stations there are in the U.S.?
Today the FCC released two lists containing the total number of licensed broadcast stations in the United States. Despite the crowded radio dial, the number of licensed radio stations increased between June and September, 2011. According to the FCC, as of September 30, 2011 (PDF), there were 14,865 radio stations in the U.S. That represents […]
Harold Camping Issues Vague Apology, Says World will End without Warning
October 21, 2011 came and went and Family Radio founder Harold Camping’s dire predictions about the end of the world occurring on that date never came to be. Although he’s been recuperating from a stroke and is rumored to be retiring from Family Radio, the 90-year-old Christian radio host was noticeably silent on his latest […]
Podcasting, satellite, internet and broadcast: it’s all RADIO to us
We, your humble Radio Survivors, are unabashed fans of broadcast radio. That much should be clear to anyone who peruses our site. But we hope that readers also see that we don’t limit ourselves to the AM, FM and shortwave dials. It’s vitally important to recognize that every time a new audio distribution technology comes […]
Stop Online Piracy Act: an online music sharing killer?
I am reading Representative Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, and it scares the heck out of me. Like the oft-criticized Protect IP Act making its way through the Senate, the House bill is ostensibly designed to stop pirate content sites by allowing the U.S. Attorney General to get a court order forcing […]
Community Radio Comes to Borneo
Jim Ellinger of Austin Airwaves wrote with exciting news about a community radio station that he’s helping to launch along with RadioActive Radio in Borneo. Apparently the first community-run radio station in Malaysia, Radio Bario launched two weeks ago over the FM airwaves in the central highlands of Borneo. Yesterday Ellinger reported that the station […]
Clear Channel: laying off deejays; still pushing for deregulation
The New York Times reports that Clear Channel is laying off radio deejays across the country, perhaps in the hundreds. These include Tony Lynn and Myles Copeland of Clear Channel Albuquerque country music station KBQI, shown in the YouTube video below. But two weeks before the story came out, the radio giant once again asked […]
Public file is still alive as FCC considers online docs
At yesterday’s open meeting the FCC released a new proposal to “modernize” public inspection files at television broadcast stations [PDF]. The biggest change proposed is to have the FCC host the files on its own website rather than have each broadcaster use its own website. As expected, the Commission also vacated a 2007 order that […]