During lunchtime on a Thursday in early March, University of Massachusetts Amherst’s college radio station WMUA was buzzing with activity. Tables in the lobby were full of students working on laptops, eating and socializing, while the station’s two main studios (one for the 91.1 FM signal and another for streaming station WMUAx) were occupied by […]
The Open Media Project is a non-profit that provides tools and support for local and state governments to put meetings and events online. This makes government more accessible to the public, but also to journalists, community radio producers, and podcasters. Gavin Dahl, the project’s leader for government, guests to discuss the group’s work. In the […]
The great WMUA-FM Polka War continued through last week. Supporters of polka programming at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus station kept protesting reductions in the genre. But the U.Mass administration is sticking to its guns. They’ll be more student involvement at the station, its principals insist, and that means less polka music on WMUA. “Polka programming will continue to […]
This week a few college radio groups got some unwelcome news. As I reported yesterday, two college radio stations (online stations WLOY at Loyola University and WJHU at Johns Hopkins University) competing for a new low power FM (LPFM) license in Baltimore learned that they most likely won’t be winning a license. We also got […]
I was just reading about the loss of some music clubs in Boston and within the same article there’s discussion about how the independent music scene is supported and fostered by not only an active live music culture, but also by the presence of college radio. In a piece for WBUR’s Radio Boston, Musician Peter […]
Starting at 6:30 this morning, my eyes have been fixed on college radio station KFJC‘s live remote broadcast from a psychedelic festival in Holland. As a long-time KFJC volunteer, I’m amazed and impressed that my colleagues have once again pulled off a complex international live broadcast with live multi-camera HD video. Nine station volunteers traveled […]
Working in college radio can influence one’s life in profound ways, even helping to shape one’s future career. Earlier this week I posted my Q&A with author Eric Weisbard. Although his new book, Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music, focuses on mainstream radio formats, Weisbard also has a college radio past (at […]
