While watching the news last night I was hit hard by the anchor’s announcement of breaking news that David Bowie had died. What?! It was just a few days ago that we were collectively celebrating Bowie’s birthday on social media and over the airwaves. I had just gotten a press release on Thursday from Seattle […]
I am loving these holiday contemporary music and choral music polls run by WQXR in New York City and Minnesota Public Radio.
DJs, vinyl-heads and radio nerds rejoiced at the unveiling this week of the new Technics SL-1200G turntable. It’s an all-new version of the venerated DJ deck that ruled clubs, radio studios and many living rooms for nearly 40 years until being discontinued in 2010. However, for many there’s a grey cloud looming over this sunny […]
I fear I didn’t write last month’s post on good inexpensive turntables soon enough. To the surprise of many, Amazon announced that its top selling item in electronics during the 2015 holiday season was a turntable. Unfortunately, it was a too-cheap, plastic, vinyl-chewing record player that barely costs more than two new LPs. My only […]
Happy New Year! It’s been awhile since I’ve written a “regular” College Radio Watch column, although there’s been quite a bit of college radio news in the past few weeks. I’m slowing making my way towards my 100th radio station tour report and am really looking forward to visiting more college radio stations in 2016. […]
With regard to new stations going on the air, 2015 represented the biggest single-year leap forward for non-commercial and community radio in U.S. history. At the end of the year 524 new low-power FM stations had been fully licensed during the year. This represents a 68% increase in the overall number of LPFM stations compared […]
A year ago I rhapsodized about my love of televised yule logs and gave my report on some of the examples that aired during the 2014 Christmas holiday. Well, Christmas 2015 also brought with it many opportunities to view yule logs on TV and I ended up catching a few that I’d never seen before. […]
The new performance royalty rates that internet radio will pay artists and record labels were released on December 16 and many small and mid-sized internet-only broadcasters are now fearing they’ll be put out of business. While there was a modest increase on the fee paid for each song played, the bigger concern is what’s missing. […]
It has been a while since I checked in on Earbits, the commercial free online music application that encourages you to become an active fan of the bands and musicians on your stream. Since then, it has greatly improved and I have constructed a hybrid classical radio channel via its excellent Chrome extension feature. For those […]
Earlier this year when I was recapping the College Broadcasters Inc. (CBI) conference for the Radio Survivor Podcast (an event that I also spoke at), Paul asked me if there was an overarching sentiment or theme that I gleaned from the conference. I struggled to point out any specific theme and as I’ve spent more […]
