It’s no-good-deed-goes-unpunished-time over San Francisco’s radio airwaves. As Jennifer Waits has reported, the city’s Pirate Cat radio station has ceased terrestrial broadcasting in response to a Federal Communications Commission fine against the service. Why was the station sanctioned, anyway? Let’s go through the possibilities. Was it because Pirate Cat shortchanges Bay Area listeners by not […]
Archive | piracy
The education of a radio pirate
I am belatedly reading Sue Carpenter’s wonderful memoir 40 Watts From Nowhere and chuckling at her evolution from a disgruntled DJ wannabe to a radio station manager. The book is sine qua non for anyone who aspires to run any kind of community-style radio station, as far as I’m concerned, because it shows how different […]
Kitchen Confidential Meets Radio Confidential in San Francisco
If foie gras and tripe can stand in for quaaludes and mescaline, then Anthony Bourdain is the Hunter S. Thompson of food television. As a so-called “anti-celebrity” chef Bourdain is the host of the Travel Channel’s No Reservations, traveling to both familiar and exotic places in order to explore their culture via food, often with […]
Hey radio pirates, think twice before you invoke emergency authorization
There’s another pirate radio station on the loose: FCC Free Radio in San Francisco. Jennifer Waits wrote a nice piece about it here on Thursday. I’ve been streaming the outlet for the last few days and it’s a fun signal with a big sense of humor. But I’m getting a little tired of these unlicensed […]