For the first time, the FCC just granted booster stations to two LPFMs in California. Like the name implies, a booster helps a station to fill in parts of its broadcast area where geographic impediments–like hills or mountains–prevent the signal from being received well where it otherwise should be heard. Unlike a translator repeater station, […]
“Radio Silence” is a ten-part radio event from Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz that will launch on July 29 with a live performance on Independence Mall in Philadelphia. The series returns famed Iraqi broadcast journalist Bahjat Adulawahed to the airwaves, along with the talents of Iraqi refugees, Iraq War veterans, musicians and performers, to frame the […]
Amazon Echo. Google Home. And soon, Apple’s HomePod. Smart speakers are quickly taking up residence in homes. Taking voice commands to deliver news, weather, music and more, they play a very radio-like role in people’s daily routine. Radio journalist Brian Edwards-Tiekert joins to explain what these speakers can do, what they can’t, and what the […]
After covering the comeback of the live streaming radio platform Live365 two episodes ago, listeners asked us to check out MixCloud, which offers free streaming of music radio shows, DJ sets, mixtapes and podcasts for anyone, including radio stations and independent producers. So this week we talk with Xanthe Fuller, Head of Community for Mixcloud. […]
Our latest podcast is all about the first, and—to the best of our knowledge—only low-power FM station broadcasting digitally with HD Radio. The episode has stimulated quite a bit of conversation on social media and raised some questions about the relationship between LPFM and HD Radio. Here I’ll try to answer the most common questions […]
If you’ve heard of HD Radio it was probably in a spot on a major commercial station, not a high school station. KVCB-LP is the exception to that rule, a high school radio station that is likely the first and only low-power FM station to start broadcasting in digital HD Radio. Ralph Martin is the […]
Independent internet radio was devastated in January 2016 when music royalty rates shot up and long-time webcasting company Live365 went out of business. Now Live365 is back under new ownership, and CEO Jon Stephenson joins the show to tell us how the company is ready to help small webcasters get back to broadcasting online affordably, […]
On May 18, by a strict 2 to 1 party-line vote, the FCC decided to begin a proceeding to undo the 2015 Open Internet Order, rescinding the network neutrality protections that have been in place for more than two years. It’s something that Chairman Ajit Pai promised to do not long after taking office, and […]
Mae Brussell hosted radio shows focused on the JFK Assassination, fascism and other conspiracies on community radio stations KLRB an KAZU in the 1970s and 1980s. Brussell’s brand of broadcasting represents a strain of community radio show thatcontinues to be found, often to the chagrin of program directors and boards of directors. Matthew Lasar joins […]
The MP3 is dead, we’re to believe. That’s because the technology’s inventor, the Fraunhofer Institute, has ended licensing of the patented technologies needed for the encoding and decoding of MP3 files. Reality, of course, it a little more complicated. As Fraunhofer itself clarified in a blog post this past week, the licensing program ended because […]
