Yesterday it was announced that long-time alternative rock station WFNX is selling its Boston-area 101.7 FM frequency to Clear Channel. One of the few independently-owned commercial radio stations, WFNX is currently owned by MCC Broadcasting Company (which is affiliated with the Boston Phoenix aka Phoenix Media/Communications Group). Stephen Mindich, President of MCC announced in a […]
Today is the first annual High School Radio Day and at least 30 high school radio stations are participating in this event designed to raise the profile of high school radio. I plan to tune in to some of my nearby stations in order to see if they have anything planned. Unfortunately, according to the […]
As I was researching a specific tidbit of radio history a few weeks back, I happened upon some intriguing stories about the early days of student radio at Georgia Tech. Today Georgia Tech is home to the 100,000 watt college radio station WREK at 91.1 FM; but back in the 1940s, plans were underway for […]
A year ago I was growing increasingly fascinated with Family Radio as they became the center of a media frenzy over their President Harold Camping’s predictions of global catastrophe on May 21, 2011. Billboards promoting their Judgment Day pronouncements were present all over the world and Camping’s live call-in talk program, “Open Forum,” ratcheted up […]
Inspired by the inaugural College Radio Day in 2011, the first annual High School Radio Day is scheduled for May 16, 2012. The idea is to spread the word about high school radio. The date was chosen because apparently the first high school radio station in the United States, WNAS, launched in May 1949 in […]
On my Spinning Indie blog I have an ambitious project in which I’m trying to profile a college radio station from each of the 50 states in the U.S. I started the series in October, 2008, when I took my first virtual trip to KXUA in Arkansas. I managed to get to 15 states total […]
Not many college radio stations can lay claim to 70 years of broadcasting, so it’s exciting to hear that student radio has been a part of campus life at Wellesley College since 1942. The first station, WBS 730 AM, launched in 1942 and was apparently the first all-woman college radio station. Eventually that station evolved […]
I’ve spent the past through days digging through college radio history artifacts and it’s been inspiring to read about the passion and energy that has gone into building radio stations on campuses across the country since the 1920s. University of Idaho’s free form college radio station, KUOI, started up in 1945 and was a descendent […]
This week students at Camosun College in Victoria, British Columbia took over the campus radio station, VillageNow.net, in order to protest cuts to the radio program. According to an article in the Vancouver Sun, “College president Kathryn Laurin announced the suspension of the applied communication program last week in a round of deep cuts to […]
Yesterday, Camden, New Jersey radio station WKDN made a radical change in programming, switching from Family Radio to Hannity@106.9 FM Radio following the the station’s sale to Merlin Media for $22.5 million. Listeners to WKDN in the Philadelphia-area could hear Family Radio’s religious programming transitioning to a loop of the R.E.M. song “It’s the End […]
