Radio Heroes in Tuscaloosa Aid Tornado Survivors
On April 27, a massive tornado hit Tuscaloosa, Alabama, devastating entire neighborhoods. Parts of the city’s basic infrastructure were damaged and power outages were rampant. As was the case following natural disasters in other parts of the world (such as the earthquake in Haiti), radio has been a lifeline for residents of Tuscaloosa. WVUA-FM at […]
NPR crunches its Israel/Palestine conflict story numbers
NPR has released an exhaustive audit of its Israel/Palestine dispute coverage for the first quarter of this year. Since NPR doesn’t do public audits of its environmental, mobile phone, or country music coverage, I’m guessing that the review reflects the fact that anything you write about the Israel/Palestine subject is grist for the protest mill […]
College Radio DJs from California Convene at KCSB for UCRN Conference
Over the weekend I road-tripped to Santa Barbara for the University of California Radio Network’s (UCRN) spring conference. Held at University of California, Santa Barbara’s college radio station KCSB, the event brought together radio station advisors, staff members, and DJs from (for the most part) University of California-affiliated college radio stations. Held twice a year, […]
FCC probe of Arbitron Portable People Meter is over
The Federal Communications Commission has called off its investigation of Arbitron’s controversial Portable People Meter. The PPM gadget replaced Arbitron’s old diary system, in which users jotted down their radio preferences. Instead they wear PPM’s like pagers, which listen to the signals in the consumer’s immediate vicinity. A group of minority media advocates, the PPM […]
Mellon Foundation kicking in a grant to buy Duquense University’s WDUQ
Luckily this is not another story about a student-run station being sold by its college. Instead, it’s about a public station being sold to another public radio group. WDUQ is Duquesne University’s public station in Pittsburgh, PA, airing much of the typical NPR news programming along with about 100 hours of jazz a week. Duquesne […]
The five things I do when I hear weird music on the radio
Not long ago I was driving down the San Francisco Bay Area’s Highway 280 and listening to Foothills Junior College’s KFJC-FM, and some really weird music came on. I tried to get what it was from the deejay’s back-announce commentary, but got distracted by traffic. Anyway, it sounded like Karlheinz Stockhausen’s piece for String Quartet […]
Pandora: 10 billion happy thumbs served
It ain’t 245 billion hamburgers, but Pandora’s Tim Westergren says that the ten billionth person to click the “happy thumb” on a Pandora tune has done so. “Just over a week ago, on Sunday, April 24th at 4:46pm, ‘Ridin’ Solo’ by Jason DeRulo received Pandora’s 10 billionth thumb. 10 BILLION…wow!,” Westergren notes in his latest […]
The mediageek’s advice for college stations, part 2: No more elitism — Recruit, recruit, recruit
The theme of part 1 of this series, posted last week, was ensuring that your college station works to be valuable to your school, and is also recognized by the campus for this value. Part 2 follows in this theme by focusing on the most important aspect of this: keeping students involved in college radio. […]
NPR statistical snapshot: a moderate/liberal news service
Over the last three weeks NPR has released some interesting statistical data about itself through its Ombudsman’s office. The data bolsters common knowledge, that NPR’s politics are moderate-to-liberal. Here is a summary of the revelations. Listeners First, the plurality of NPR listeners identify themselves as liberal, but a considerable percentage see themselves as either “conservative” […]
Public FCC Files on the Chopping Block
Just in time for the start of the latest radio station license-renewal cycle, the FCC opens up for question the notion of abolishing the public file requirement for broadcasters. This is not a self-imposed initiative: it is a consideration the agency is mandated to make, courtesy of the Paperwork Reduction Act. It requires regulatory agencies […]