The Sony Walkman celebrated its 40th birthday on Monday, July 1. While portable audiocassette recorder/players that you could connect to headphones had been around pretty much since the invention of the medium, the Walkman was the first one designed specifically for stereo playback on the go, for personal listening, without even a tiny speaker. Although […]
Author Archive | Paul Riismandel
A Decade of Radio Surviving
Ten years and 16 days ago we opened the doors on this website. On June 11, 2009 Matthew Lasar inaugurated Radio Survivor with this post: “Congress grills FCC, NAB on Low Power FM.” This was still about 18 months before the Local Community Radio Act was signed into law, opening up the most recent wave […]
Internet Radio on the Mac, After iTunes
After assessing the state and likely demise of the iTunes internet radio tuner, I started to consider what this means for listening to internet radio with a computer, rather than mobile device, smart speaker or appliance. Then we received an email from a reader who reported they still use iTunes for internet radio, in part […]
What Happens to Internet Radio when Apple Kills iTunes?
I have to admit that I don’t quite remember the last time I browsed internet radio in iTunes. It’s been so long, in fact, that during research for this post, when I fired up the app on my MacBook I couldn’t even find the radio directory. Lucky for me, this Apple support doc helped me […]
Podcast #197 – Raven Radio in Sitka, Alaska
Alaska’s unique geography and way-of-life leads to unique radio. Raven Radio is a public and community station serving the city of Sitka, along with seven other small towns in Southeast Alaska. The station is not just a source of news, music and culture, but also a lifeline for people living in remote communities where there […]
Touring KCAW, Sitka Alaska’s Raven Radio
For most people living outside Alaska, if they’ve heard of Sitka it’s because they’ve been on a cruise ship that stopped there. This small city of just under 9,000 people in the Southeast of the state, near the capital of Juneau, balloons in size when ships dock to give passengers an opportunity to take in […]
Podcast #191: How an LPFM Produces an Hour of Hyper-Local News Every Weekday
Every weekday an all-volunteer reporting staff produces an hour of original, hyper-local news for WOOC-LP’s “Hudson Mohawk Magazine,” serving the Troy, NY area. A focus on mission and a concentration of resources on journalism helps the station accomplish this daily feat. Steve Pierce is the Executive Director of Media Alliance, which operates WOOC inside the […]
This Concise History of LPFM in the U.S. Is a Must-Read
Most press coverage of low-power FM focuses on particular stations, or the flourishing of the medium in the last half-decade. Not unexpectedly, rarely do articles delve into the deep history, which goes all the way back to 1948, with mileposts in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s, leading up the FCC’s eventual creation of the […]
140 Stations Celebrate Vinylthon this Saturday
It started in college radio and now is sweeping stations around the world. No, I’m not talking about R.E.M. It’s Vinylthon! This Saturday, April 13 – which, not coincidentally, happens to be Record Store Day – 140 stations will feature programming with only vinyl records, some going all day long. The ones that clock in […]
Sound Stories: Toronto Hip-Hop & Radio; First All-Podcast Radio Station In 2019 or 2005?
Every week we seek out compelling stories about sound and radio and share them on Twitter. Here are some of the most intriguing from the last week: Vote looms on bringing jazz radio back to MHCC“The Mt. Hood Community College Board will vote next week on whether to bring jazz radio station KMHD back to […]