Public Access vs. Public Service – Addressing the Biggest Hidden Tension in Community Radio
One of the greatest tensions for community radio stations lies in the spectrum between public access and public service. Although this conflict may not be explicitly discussed, it implicitly affects every single programming decision. It’s time for this tension to be made explicit, and for stations to actively grapple with how to balance a focus […]
Podcast #73 – Catching Up with Bainbridge Island’s Community Podcasting Experiment
This week we follow up with the subject of one our first episodes, Bainbridge Community Broadcasting. Paul took a day trip on a ferry from Seattle to visit Bainbridge Island and drop in on BCB. Co-founder Barry Peters took a few minutes to give a tour of the BCB studios and provide an update on […]
Trapped in the Grid: Why Community Radio Risks Irrelevance
This is a transitional time for community radio, unprecedented in the medium’s more than 60-year history in the U.S. Thousands of new LPFM stations are going on the air bringing service to communities that never had community radio, or adding new services to supplement existing community stations. At the same time many community stations risk […]
Preserving Audio That’s on Cassette
In my continuing quest to stay a step ahead of recording media degradation and obsolescence, I have undertaken the digitization of my remaining audiocassette collection. Last year I wrote about preserving my archive of interviews and air checks on minidisc, with the hope that the post would be informative and maybe compel some readers with […]
Turn the lights on! What we can learn from KPFA’s Bill Mandel
William Mandel has died. Mandel broadcast over KPFA’s airwaves for almost half a century, offering commentaries on the now-defunct Soviet Union. He wrote books about the USSR, among them Soviet Women and Soviet but not Russian: the Other Peoples of the Soviet Union. He spoke at just about any public event at which someone would let him appear. He died […]
Tuning in to Alice’s Restaurant on the Radio on Thanksgiving 2016
Catch Alice’s Restaurant on the 2023 radio dial. See our latest listening guide. Happy early Thanksgiving! After a particularly contentious Presidential election, many families are anxious about upcoming holiday gatherings. Some are banning political conversations, whereas others are setting ground rules for polite discourse. Perhaps the long-standing radio tradition of listening to Arlo Guthrie’s […]
Podcast #72 – Pete Tridish Celebrates an LPFM Success Story
Pete Tridish works as a radio engineer, building low power and full power community radio stations. He initially did this work with Prometheus Radio Project and now with International Media Action. “Back when I was working with Prometheus Radio Project, which was a group that worked to expand the low power radio service and create […]
College Radio Watch: Arkansas Travels and More College Radio News
I’m already itching to visit more college radio stations, but first I need to write up all of my recent field trips. With that goal in mind, I just posted a piece about my visit to college radio station KHDX at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. Staffers there have been busy since my visit and […]
Radio Station Visit #116 – KHDX at Hendrix College
On my second day in Arkansas (October 7, 2016), I left Fayetteville before sunrise in order to tour three radio stations on my journey back to Little Rock. My first stop was to KUOZ-LP at University of the Ozarks (more on that in a future post), followed by my trip to Hendrix College’s student-run college […]
Podcast #71 – Bolivia Is the Birthplace of Community Radio
Sylvia Thomas spent a year touring and researching community radio stations in South America, Asia and Africa. She learned community radio history that might be surprising to many in the United States, and witnessed first-hand different ways of organizing stations and creating radio that are instructive to stations everywhere. Sylvia explains how growing up listening […]