FCC Taking a Look at BusRadio
Every day I learn something new about radio and today I was really surprised to discover that there’s an entire radio service called BusRadio that is piped in to school buses and reaches a million kids. They tout themselves as “a superior, age-appropriate alternative to AM/FM radio programming.” According to an article in the Denver […]
Radio factoid: educational broadcasting is pulling the weight when it comes to full power station growth
A look at radio licensing trends in the United States over the last five years shows an interesting pattern. While the number of commercial AM and FM full power licenses has declined or remained flat, there’s been a big expansion in educational FM stations. Lets’ review the stats in QA form. Q. How many Federal […]
Pandora asks subscribers to support the Performance Rights Act
If you listen to Pandora internet radio, you probably got a message yesterday from the service’s founder Tim Westergren, asking subscribers to support the Performance Rights Act. That’s the proposed law that would require terrestrial radio stations to pay performance royalty fees to the artists whose music they broadcast. “The system as it stands today […]
100% User-Controlled Radio?
In his post about Pandora yesterday, Matthew mentioned that he’d like to see a different model of radio on the Internet, where both listeners and DJs have some sort of control over the music selections. Well, we’re definitely in an era full of user-generated content and of success stories like American Idol, where fans vote […]
Hey Pandora: I'd pay even more than 99 cents for DJs
Everybody’s breathing a sigh of relief now that Sound Exchange has released its new and more affordable performance royalty rates for webcasting. And the biggest exhale is blowing in the direction of Pandora “internet radio,” as it calls itself. “Pandora Lives!” is the victory cry du jour. Pandora is being a bit more circumspect than […]
And Now, a Long-Distance Dedication
The relevancy of the Billboard Top 40 singles chart seems to have faded over time in concert with the splintering of genres and audiences, and so the final broadcast of Casey Kasem on American Top 20 this past weekend seemed to garner only the barest of media notices. Perhaps that’s because Kasem handed off the […]
Stevie Wonder’s case against the Arbitron Portable People Meter
Among the top Federal Communications Commission-related headlines this morning is Arbitron’s insistence, yet again, that the FCC doesn’t have regulatory authority over the alleged inadequacies of its controversial Portable People Meter (or PPM as it is acronymed). And RBR/TVBR.com (the “Voice of the Broadcasting Industry”) adds its growl to the chorus: “A note to new […]
Home-Brew Radio in a WWII POW Camp Shows Radio's Survivability
This interview with Lieutenant Colonel R G Wells who constructed a radio receiver and transmitter in a Japanese POW camp during World War II has been making the blog rounds recently (via free103point via BoingBoing via MAKE). Though somewhat technical, the account is a fascinating example of what a simple technology radio is given that […]
Garrett Wollman's Radio Tower Quest
Fandom is an amazing thing and thanks to the Internet it’s easier and easier to find like-minded obsessives who share one’s passion for the most obscure objects, idols, and idiosyncrasies. Radio is no exception. Loads of websites document radio history, with nostalgic archivists collecting ephemera, airchecks, and reminiscences from San Francisco to Boston. Various forums […]
Palin bows out as Alaska Gov. Is the next step talk radio?
Ever since John McCain made his disastrous decision to pick Sarah Palin as his running made in ’08, I’ve been saying that the winner of that election was her. It was only a matter of time, I told my circle of friends, before she ducked out of her gig as Alaska’s governor and cashed in […]