Pioneering community radio station WFMU wants to better empower community media on the internet. That’s why the station created Audience Engine, providing tools for publishing, community building and fundraising that don’t surrender control to third-party platforms like Facebook. WFMU station manager Ken Freedman joins to explain how the platform will help make stations sustainable when […]
Author Archive | Paul Riismandel
Celebrate National Radio Day on August 20
This year broadcasters, producers and listeners are planning to make National Radio Day the biggest yet. On August 20 stations around the country will broadcast special programming and hold events to celebrate this most enduring electronic medium. Sabrina Roach, the Radio Doer for Brown Paper Tickets, has helped organize a diverse group of people to […]
LPFM Watch: Commercial Station Group Attacks Tampa LPFM
Just one LPFM construction permit was issued by the FCC in the past week, to the Community Advocacy Coalition of Ventura County, in Oxnard, California. As construction permits issued 18 months ago are expiring some of the other low-power radio action pertains to extensions for stations that are not yet on the air. For instance, […]
Radio Survivor Podcast #9: Remembering Negativland’s Don Joyce
This week Jennifer Waits joins us live in studio as we remember Don Joyce, a pioneering sound artist and member of the culture jamming musical group Negativland, who passed away on July 22. We also discuss AT&T’s plan to activate the FM radio’s on the carrier’s Android phones, and KEXP’s recent 12-hour marathon broadcast exploring […]
Digital Watch: AT&T Android Phones Get FM in 2016
On Tuesday AT&T, the nation’s second largest wireless carrier, announced that it is activating the FM radio chips on Android smartphones subscribed to its service. Beginning in 2016, subscribers buying new compatible phones will be able to use the free NextRadio app to listen to both terrestrial broadcasts and those stations’ internet streams. Sprint, the […]
Radio Survivor Podcast #8: Bainbridge Community Broadcasting Chose Podcasting over LPFM
After doing the math the founders of Bainbridge Community Broadcasting in Washington State decided that podcasting was a better route to serve their community than low-power FM. Barry and Channie Peters join us to discuss why they made this decision and how they’re using radio to inform and educate the community of Bainbridge Island. In […]
Radio Survivor Podcast #7: The FCC’s Legacy of Failure with Media Ownership Policy
On this episode Dr. Christopher Terry from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee tells us how the FCC has fumbled its updates of media ownership regulation for a dozen years, and why that’s important. We also learn why community radio and independent musicians should care that NPR has left the MIC coalition, a lobbying group targeting music […]
Art Bell Returns Monday Night, Possible Test Show on Sunday Night
Monday night at midnight Eastern Time is the much anticipated return of Art Bell. Though originally planned to be an online-only show on the Dark Matter network, 21 AM and FM stations and two shortwave stations have now picked it up. Most of the stations are outside major markets, with the exception of affiliates in […]
LPFM News: First New Construction Permits of July Issued
The first low-power FM construction permits of the month were issued in the last week–three of them, to be precise. Two are in Florida, and one in California. That brings the grand total to 1,871 LPFM applications approved from the 2013 licensing window. One grantee had its request to cancel its construction permit finalized by […]
Digital Watch: Happy Birthday MP3!
Yesterday was the 20th birthday of the MP3. As historian Brian McCullough tells it on his Internet History Podcast, on July 14, 1995 an email made the rounds at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Germany declaring, “everyone voted for .mp3 as extension for ISO MPEG Audio Layer 3!” At that moment the files […]