Scrutiny of KUSF Deal Continues as USF and CPRN Respond to FCC’s Inquiry Letter
It’s been nearly seven months since the plug was pulled on the University of San Francisco (USF) terrestrial college radio station KUSF, and the FCC is still scrutinizing the pending sale of the 90.3 FM license to Classical Public Radio Network (CPRN). On August 1, USF and CPRN submitted their joint response to the FCC’s […]
Rock radio’s war against disco
Sirius XM has announced a new music channel: Studio 54 Radio, described as a 24/7 commercial free tribute to the legendary club of the disco era. "The channel will air music that comes from the vaults and special record collections of insiders, much of which has never been heard since the club’s doors shut," the […]
Microradio pioneer Mbanna Kantako receives notice from the FCC
Mbanna Kantako has been running one of the longest lived unlicensed radio stations in the US, Human Rights Radio in Springfield, IL. He served as the inspiration for Stephen Dunifer and other microradio activists who used unlicensed broadcasting as a means for civil disobedience in the 1990s. While Kantako has had several run-ins with the […]
New York State makes pirate broadcasting a misdemeanor
Last week New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that makes broadcasting on the AM or FM dials a class A misdemeanor, which is punishable with up to a year in prison. Like similar laws in New Jersey and Florida, the legislation was pushed by broadcasters in the state who cheered its passage. The original […]
Turntable.fm’s best kept secret: great classical music
Everybody’s talking about turntable.fm these days, the service that allows you to create your own music rooms and share tunes with your friends. The New York based startup is such a huge hit that it appears that Lady Gaga and Kanye West are investing their possibly hard earned cash in the application. We did a […]
New Zealand’s Radio One 91 FM Fends Off Sale of Student Station
It’s nice to hear some good news amid all the battles over the future of college radio. After a very public protest over a rumored sell-off, the University of Otago student radio station Radio One 91FM in Dunedin, New Zealand announced today that the station will not be sold. Back in July, the student association […]
Radio World editor chuckles at Matthew’s economic analysis of pirate radio, but forgets his radio history
In his “From the Editor” column Radio World’s Paul McLane takes up Matthew’s recent calculation finding that pirate radio generates a half-billion dollars worth of jobs. Recall that my esteemed Radio Survivor colleague was riffing off a recent study sponsored by the National Association of Broadcasters that claimed $135 billion in economic output is attributable […]
Missing persons: how postwar Japan used radio to save itself
I am reading John W. Dower’s wonderful book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. One of the tome’s many virtues is that it reminds us how crucial radio was to Japan’s reconstruction process. Close to three million people were dead and many Japanese cities almost completely destroyed when Emperor Hirohito went […]
Happy 30th Anniversary MTV: “Doing for TV, what FM did for Radio”
Over the weekend I was so jealous when various friends mentioned that they were tuning in to the original first hour of MTV. In celebration of the 30th anniversary of MTV’s launch on August 1, 1981; VH1 Classic is in the midst of a 3-day marathon full of retro MTV programming, including a rebroadcast of […]
Broadband talk radio up and talking
One of my favorite talkers about Internet related matters now has his own talk radio show. Community broadband advocate Craig Settles is calling it Gigabit Nation, and you can expect it to talk up the virtues of various kinds of municipal and public broadband networks on a regular basis. The online program is sponsored by […]