Cumulus Media’s long-standing San Francisco radio news station KGO recently laid off its news staff, at the same time the company’s rock station KFOG also fired most of its on-air staff. We discuss what this means for Bay Area listeners and what it indicates for the future of radio journalism. Jennifer Waits joins to bring […]
An advisory group to the Parliament of Botswana has unanimously endorsed the establishment of community radio stations in that southern African country to “mitigate communication breakdown between Dikgosi and their communities.” Dikgosi is the plural for Kgosi, a Setswana word for tribal chief. The problem, as the advisory board Ntlo ya Dikgosi sees it, is that […]
This week the Wall Street Journal ran a piece about recent changes at Georgia State University’s college radio station WRAS-FM. As we’ve been reporting, the student-run station in Atlanta, Georgia was recently told that administrators had made a secret deal with Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB). As part of that arrangement, student voices are now only […]
The Federal Communications Commission’s media ownership rules are once again the spotlight of attention. After years of litigation and turmoil, the agency is again considering a deregulatory measure that would make it easier for TV networks to buy newspapers in major markets. The specter of Rupert Murdoch purchasing more newspapers hangs over this proceeding (his […]
I am reviewing the furious responses of our readers to Eric Klein’s story on the format change at KPOJ in Portland. Only ten days ago it was Progressive Talk Radio. Now it is a sports channel. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” one comment exclaims. “Put talk radio back on KPOJ immediately! We have enough sports […]
In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, Radio Waves columnist Ben Fong-Torres revealed which San Francisco Bay Area radio stations are on his car radio’s presets. Fong-Torres writes: “I had six AM preset slots; 12 FM. I can’t even come up with six AMs anymore. I went with KNBR, KCBS, KGO, KKSF, KNBR at 1050 and … […]
Another San Francisco Bay Area listener upheaval over morning show changes. This one at Cumulus owned KFOG 104.5 FM, where Bill Webster and “Irish Greg” McQuaid have been replaced by a new “KFOG in the Morning” program with Greg Gory, Tony Longo, and Melanie Walker. Webster and Greg were dumped in the middle of May. […]
As part of an overall re-branding and re-formatting effort across several Clear Channel-owned stations in San Francisco, call signs for KKSF, KNEW, and KKGN were changed yesterday. The station formerly known as KKSF, now branded as oldies station 103.7 FM, became KOSF. That left the KKSF call letters available for use by the former KNEW […]
Happy 2012. Over the past few weeks, Matthew, Paul and I have written up our obligatory “year-end” pieces, summarizing some of the big radio trends from 2011. I covered college radio in my article, 2011: The Year that College Radio Fought Back, Paul wrote about some of the technological changes in music in his piece, […]
I’m a college radio history buff, so whenever I run across someone who has taken the time to document the early history of a college radio station I am beyond impressed. Lew Houston, formerly of WRKU radio at Kutztown University (now known as KUR radio), researched, compiled and wrote, “Finding WRKU: A History of College […]
