Radio Obsessive Profile #5: Herculodge's Jeff McMahon- The Man Who Loved Radios Too Much
It’s time for another installment in our ongoing series Radio Obsessives, in which we share tales about people who are passionate about radio. So far we’ve profiled Garrett Wollman’s Radio Tower Quest, Jose Fritz and his amazing Arcane Radio Trivia website, Radio Sticker of the Day curator Greg Blouch, and radio historian/Seattle Radio Theater founder […]
Parents TV Council: Stop Howard Stern from joining American Idol!
The Parents Television Council has a message for Sirius radio shock jock Howard Stern’s reported plans to join American Idol: No pasará—he shall not pass. “WHEREAS Howard Stern is one of the most profane, sexually-explicit and anti-family performers in the history of the broadcast medium;” declares the PTC’s latest resolution and petition (which the group […]
National Public Radio: Just call us 'NPR'
My friend and award winning documentary film maker Alan Snitow wrote to me a couple of weeks ago with a good question. How come you rarely hear anyone at National Public Radio call it “National Public Radio” anymore, just “NPR”? I went over to NPR’s web site to refresh my memory on this. By golly, […]
10% of BitTorrent users download music – 99% of it is "likely" illegal
A recent survey performed by Princeton senior Sauhard Sahi under the supervision of Edward Felten attempted to discover the types of files available on BitTorrent, a popular file distribution website. According to the study, 10 percent of the shared files contained music: “For the music category, the predominant encoding format for music was MP3, there […]
Radio Survivor launches Classified Ads and Events feature
When Voice Over pro Ron Reid of Lubbock, Texas contacted us about his services this week, we sadly informed him that we’re not a radio show (we just like radio shows and write about them). But it also became clear that Radio Survivor needed to add a new feature to its arsenal of widgets and […]
FCC proposes fine for New York FM station after bogus death notice
A radio station that staged a prank call to a New York woman claiming that her husband had been badly hurt in a motorcycle accident, then died in a hospital, has received a proposed fine of $16,000 from the Federal Communications Commission. Here’s an excerpt from the August 2007 exchange: “Mr. Ithier: Juliana, oh, oh […]
Rush Limbaugh! The Musical!
He may not have been able to successfully inherit the leadership of the Republican party this year, but at least good ol’ Rushbo gets a consolation prize: a whole musical performed in his honor. Last night Chicago’s famed Second City comedy company premiered their newest production, Rush Limbaugh! The Musical! The play follows Rush through […]
Community Radio’s Challenges After the Haitian Quake
As we wrote last week, radio has played a vital communications role in Haiti in the weeks following its devastating earthquake last month. But what we didn’t cover in that story is the sad state of some Haitian community radio stations which have suffered major damage to buildings and equipment. According to a series of […]
Listening to Howard Zinn
Amazon.com Widgets Prominent historian and activist Howard Zinn passed away last week on January 27, 2010, at the age of 87 years old. Best known for his book A People’s History of the United States, which has sold almost two million copies to date, Zinn wrote history from the “bottom-up.” I had the pleasure of […]
FCC moves to fast track Native American radio
Federally recognized Native American Tribes and Alaska Native Villages who apply for AM or FM radio stations will get “Tribal Priority” status, thanks to an FCC decision released today. Tribal Priority will give precedence to their applications or to companies controlled by tribes that want to set up stations intended to serve tribal land areas. […]