Podcast #328: Media Archaeology and Other Networks
The Radio Survivors return with a new episode! For this edition, recorded in July, 2022, our guest is Lori Emerson, Founding Director of the Media Archaeology Lab (the MAL). She’s also an Associate Professor in the English Department and Director of the Intermedia Arts, Writing, and Performance Program at University of Colorado at Boulder. Lori […]
FCC’s Proposal to Legitimize FrankenFMs Proves It Isn’t in the Business of Taking Stations off the Air
The FCC is not in the business of taking licensed radio stations off the air. This is something I’ve been telling community and college radio folks for well over a decade, especially when they get themselves tied up in knots of anxiety trying to read certain regulations like literary theory, worried that a fine over […]
Podcast #327: Industrial Music Systems and Workplace Broadcasts
On this week’s program, we turn our attention to the history of industrial music – not the noisy music genre – but music played in industrial settings for workers. A variety of services offered (and still offer) background music for workplaces. Muzak and the RCA Plant Broadcasting System are just a few of the products […]
Podcast #326: The State of Listening and Broadcast Radio in 2022
The annual Infinite Dial survey from Edison Research was recently released, showing what people in the US are listening to, and where. It even includes social media platforms like TikTok, which Eric observes young people often use like radio, playing in the background as they go about daily activities. We review the stats, and also […]
Podcast #325 – Ukraine Radio, Int’l Women’s Day and Franken FMs
The Radio Survivors return to their microphones to review what’s new in radio. Of course, the Russian invasion of Ukraine hangs heavy over our heads, and we review how the international community is leveraging radio to delivery needed communications and information to Ukrainians, as well as how radio is attempting to serve the Ukrainian diaspora. […]
Radio to and from Ukraine
The Russian invasion of Ukraine greatly upsets me, as my heart goes out to the Ukrainian people. I feel a connection because my father’s family is from Estonia, which also borders Russia and has a long, unhappy history of Russian domination. While Estonia today is a free republic, the assault on Ukraine understandably puts the […]
Rough Notes: BBC Profiles 4 Community Stations Around the World; Inter-American Court Sides with Indigenous Station; Mazda Owners Stuck on KUOW
This past Sunday, February 13, was World Radio Day. I’m a few days late in recognizing it, but still have something good to share. Like last year, the BBC tapped radio journalist David Goren to produce a documentary highlighting community radio around the globe. “World Wide Waves ’22” profiles four stations: Koori Radio is the […]
How to Listen to Super Bowl LVI on the Radio around the World this Sunday, Feb. 13
This is my ninth installment on how to listen to the Super Bowl on the radio, and this year there isn’t much change from last. It seems like most of the same outlets will be carrying the big game in the US, Canada, Mexico, UK and Australia. While the match up between the Cincinnati Bengals […]
Rough Notes: Franken FMs Live On, BBC Geofences, More CD Revival, WBCN Book
Franken FMs are the radio service that refuses to die, even after the FCC ostensibly pulled the plug this past summer. Recall that these are former analog low-power TV stations on channel 6 whose audio could be heard at about 87.7 FM. Analog LPTV shut down on July 13, 2021, but then Venture Technologies Group […]
Rough Notes: RIP Howard Hesseman, WKRP’s Dr. Johnny Fever; Perfect Sound Forever, Again
Actor Howard Hesseman passed away on Saturday, Jan. 29, perhaps most well-known – at least to radio nerds – as the burned-out former hippy morning radio DJ Dr. Johnny Fever on sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati” for four seasons beginning in 1978. Hesseman was actually once a real radio DJ, for a short stint in 1967 […]