One night last week I was tuning around the AM dial here in Chicago before going to sleep when I happened upon a station playing a nice, but unusual mix of vocal jazz standards. The music set was long, interrupted only by an ID for “950 the Avenue.” The next morning I googled the station […]
With ace-consolidator Randy Michaels at the helm of Tribune Company it looks like he’s having a jolly good time installing his old Clear Channel pals into top positions at the bankrupt newspaper and broadcast company. On Monday Tribune announced that ex-Clear Channel CFO Jerry Kersting is now president of Tribune’s broadcasting division. This was followed […]
Commercial radio broadcasters on both sides of the Atlantic are no doubt praising the United Kingdom’s move to allow licensed stations to cut down on their news and local fare. “Changes in the advertising market, greater competition for audiences’ attention and technological developments mean that the radio industry is facing significant challenges and is having […]
Yesterday Edison Research and Arbitron (ARB) released the latest findings from their ongoing series of studies about the convergence of radio and technology. The Infinite Dial 2010: Digital Platforms and the Future of Radio is based on a February, 2010 telephone survey of more than 1700 people in the United States and serves as a […]
Did you get fooled today? Radio stations are often one of the last remaining outlets to celebrate April Fool’s with gusto. Morning show DJs read fake news reports, radio shows are replaced, and some stations switch their formats for 24 hours. Howard Stern once pretended that he’d been fired on April 1st over his crude […]
While we commonly accept that broadcast stations and, especially, their licenses to broadcast have a market value, for most of US broadcasting history there was no direct cost to obtain that license. Sure, there were engineer surveys to conduct, lawyers to pay, and so on. But the license itself came at no cost from the […]
In advance of its upcoming biannual review of media ownership rules, the Federal Communications Commission is holding a series of workshops on the issue. These workshops are less formal and expansive than hearings, and tend to be focused on a smaller array of topics. On April 20 the Commission’s Media Bureau will host a panel […]
Man, of all the things that commercial radio has dropped over the last decade or so, I miss back announcing the most. Yes, that lost courtesy of actually telling you the name of the song you just heard, and maybe even the one before that too. Apparently in this time-is-money-to-the-nanosecond age of broadcast radio, back […]
Last week I told you how former-Clear Channel Charm School president and current Tribune CEO Radio Randy Michaels identified 119 words and phrases that are no good for his company’s flagship station WGN-AM. Well, this week Radio Randy’s follow-up was to double-down and confront the station’s staff about how the list got leaked outside the […]
Paul and Matthew each wrote a piece (click here and here) on songs about radio. Here are a few more suggestions: 1) Alkaline Trio “Radio“: Not really a song about radio, but it does discuss “radio” as an object in an interesting break-up song. 2) American Hi-Fi “Hi-Fi Killer” I gotta disappear Don’t wanna hear […]
