Thanksgiving 2024 is a bit sadder this year, with the news that Alice Brock has passed away. What a cruel irony that the woman who inspired the Thanksgiving-themed Arlo Guthrie folk song “Alice’s Restaurant,” departed just a week before radio stations across the land would be broadcasting the story-song inspired by and named after her. […]
Arlo Guthrie’s seasonally appropriate “Alice’s Restaurant” is getting dusted off once again for radio airplay this Thanksgiving 2023. I’ve been documenting this radio ritual for many years (even while suffering with COVID last year) and was pleased to be able to speak to THE Alice in 2020. Our Radio Survivor conversation with Alice Brock is […]
This is my ninth installment on how to listen to the Super Bowl on the radio, and this year there isn’t much change from last. It seems like most of the same outlets will be carrying the big game in the US, Canada, Mexico, UK and Australia. While the match up between the Cincinnati Bengals […]
I’ve been staying in the San Francisco Bay Area this week and stumbled upon an AM talk radio network that is new to me: the Black Information Network. The format mirrors that of conventional 24-hour all-news stations like KCBS, Los Angeles’ KNX, New York’s WINS or Philadelphia’s KYW, with regular headline news, business and entertainment […]
On this week’s show, we return to the topic of hip-hop on the radio. While on Radio Survivor, we typically focus on non-commercial radio, like college and community stations; in this episode we look at why certain types of commercial radio stations were important to the growth in popularity of hip-hop music. Our guest, Amy […]
Updated Feb. 6, 2021 Last year I was in New Zealand during the Super Bowl season. In the week before I was hiking the Milford Track on the South Island, backpacking for four days across 33 miles, away from internet and television (though I did pack a little travel radio). For the actual game I was in the […]
WBCN in Boston, MA is one of the storied freeform FM stations in American commercial radio history. We’re talking about it because there’s a recent documentary film, entitled “WBCN and the American Revolution,” that dives into its history, and how WBCN’s early days in the late 60s and early 70s are intertwined with the counter […]
We love getting email from readers and listeners, and by far the most common inquiry we receive is asking how one can get a radio station license. For the last four years or so we haven’t had a good answer, because there hasn’t been an FCC license auction or application window since July 2015. Though […]
Can US radio survive even more consolidation? The National Association of Broadcasters is asking the FCC to raise local radio ownership caps in the 75 biggest radio markets, and to get rid of limits entirely in the remaining 194. The prospect of even less diversity on the airwaves has motivated a broad coalition of music […]
Looking for info on how to listen to this 2021’s Super Bowl LV? Click here. Updated Jan. 31, 2019 Once again it’s time for my annual hunt for the Super Bowl on the radio around the world. Last year I had fun listening to the first Australian to call the big game for his home […]
