On last week’s Radio Survivor show, my colleague Eric Klein did a fascinating interview with Eric Nuzum about the podcasting landscape. In the wide-ranging conversation, Nuzum talks about his college radio past at Kent State University in the mid-to-late 1980s. I love a college radio origin story, so it was fun to hear about his […]
Scholar Jocelyn Robinson says about one-third of Historically Black Colleges and Universities have radio stations. Her mission is to survey them and help preserve their histories and recorded legacies through the HBCU Radio Station Archival Survey Project, which she directs. On this episode Robinson tells us about this project, and explains why it’s important to […]
In a testament to college radio’s influence at the time; a 1990 piece in the Village Voice includes colorful trash-talking about the 1980s college radio scene. Republished this week, 1980-1989: Pop Goes the Decade carries the byline “Eddie Gorodetsky, as ranted to Jan Hoffman.” The comedy writer/comic collector/pop culture commentator touches on many things in […]
As you sit down to watch the Super Bowl this Sunday, take a moment to think about the college radio stations who have been on the scene at “Radio Row” this week in anticipation of this major sporting and media event. Amid all the major broadcasters, students are also in the mix, doing interviews and […]
On this week’s episode we learn about a brand new project at the Library of Congress that is focused entirely on archiving podcasts. Ted Westervelt, Manager of the Podcast Preservation Project at Library of Congress, joins us to share early details from this new initiative. He explains that the hope is that a wide variety […]
I’ve often dreamed of a college radio map, so I absolutely love the radio visualizations crafted by Erin Davis. While it’s not a pragmatic guide to find radio stations, her beautiful service contour maps give a general sense of how certain formats of FM radio are dispersed across the continental United States. The college radio […]
The PIRATE Act, recently passed by Congress, is intended to stem the tide of unlicensed radio broadcasting by providing the Federal Communications Commission with new tools. Chief amongst them are new maximum fines, and a shortcut to issuing them. But will this really work? Author and radio scholar John Anderson says that a lot of […]
In these early days of 2020, we’ve been taking a look back at the big radio trends from the past decade. It’s pretty mind-boggling to tally all of the changes in radio and technology since 2010. Amid it all, college radio experienced both highs and lows, but ultimately leaves the decade as strong as ever. […]
Last week we declared that the 2010s were a banner decade for community radio. As Jennifer notes, though college radio had a tough start to the last decade, with the loss of prominent stations like KUSF, KTRU and WRVU, the service seriously bounced back, aided by factors like the low-power FM boom, internet radio, HD […]
Big changes came to college radio in the 2010s, with dramatic losses and exciting new opportunities, leading to perhaps more college radio than ever before thanks to the variety of forms that college radio now takes. Despite the challenges, college radio is as resilient as ever and students’ desire to work in audio is strong […]
