The craziness of the holiday shopping season is now upon us and hopefully there’s someone on your list (maybe you) who deserves a little radio love. Whether you are shopping for a retro radio dude, a kid with a penchant for pop, someone with an eye for high design, or your favorite radio scholar, there […]
Author Archive | Jennifer Waits
High School Radio's Star Stations
Last month I had the pleasure of visiting WGBK-FM, a high school radio station in suburban Chicago. This was my very first trip to see a station run by teens and I was thrilled to witness young people doing radio. Not only were they working as DJs on standard music shows, but they were also […]
DJs in Peril: Radio Horror on Film
I’m one of those geeks who does TiVo searches using “radio” as my key word in order to ensure that I’m not missing an interesting radio-themed pop cultural moment. For some reason this week’s television listings offered up a bounty of radio nuggets, from the classic 1990 teen angst film Pump Up the Volume, to […]
Vinyl-Only Show on Commercial Radio Station WRXP
If I were ever to be interviewed for my own “Radio Obsessives” series on Radio Survivor, the topic would no doubt be my Spinning Indie Radio Station Field Trip project. Since April 2008 I’ve visited 20 different radio stations, ranging from tiny online-only college stations like WECB, to renowned community radio station WFMU outside of […]
Bay Area Radio Museum Saved, But Still Seeking Help
I was happy to read in Ben Fong-Torres’ Radio Waves column yesterday that the Bay Area Radio Museum has been saved. As we reported earlier this month, the online-only museum had scaled back recently under mounting costs. Well, not only has the California Historical Radio Society stepped up to provide some help; but the site’s […]
Scanning the Radio Dial: Chinese Radio in L.A. and College Radio in Ithaca
It’s a good sign that people continue to write articles praising radio offerings from coast-to-coast; so I just wanted to take a moment to share a couple of stories about some interesting things happening in various radio markets. A piece in the L.A. Times profiles AM station KAZN in Pasadena, California, which was the first […]
Cellphone Radio in Rural India
I think it’s clear that even if people don’t have access to traditional terrestrial radio stations, there is still a desire for radio-like content. An article in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Cellphone Entertainment Takes Off in Rural India,” discusses rural villages in India where there is limited access to FM radio, but there is cell […]
Community Radio to Provide Soundtrack for Films on Coit Tower
Just when people think that radio is dead, there are signs of it continuing to reinvent itself in interesting ways. The morning news today (on both KTVU’s “Mornings on Two” television broadcast and in the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle) brought word of an innovative art installation taking place over the Thanksgiving holiday at […]
Losing the Magic of Radio?
I spend a lot of time thinking about how changes in technology are affecting radio. I worry that the “kids” (college radio DJs as well as everyday folks) are getting lazier and lazier, bypassing physical music for digital, thinking that it’s easier to find and play. I also worry that the pleasure of enjoying an […]
Top 5 Television Shows Depicting Radio
Being both a television and a radio fanatic; I present to you my personal “top 5” list for TV shows with some sort of radio theme. Some series focus more on radio than others; but in my mind they all showcase the medium and represent a range of radio stations. I was hoping to do […]