Most people assume that college radio is by definition non-commercial, but that hasn’t always been the case historically and commercial college radio stations still exist today. Back in the early days of AM radio in the 1920s, the very first college radio stations were commercial endeavors. Fast-forward to the 1940s, when the growth of campus-only […]
Archive | History
Herbert Hoover’s four warnings about radio
Hoover was a staunch believer in public control of the airwaves. He wrote that when he arrived at the Harding Administration in 1920, radio broadcasting developers wanted regulation to prevent interference with each other, but “many of them were insisting on a right of permanent preemption of the channels through the air as private property […]
Alternative to What? Finding a Better Definition for Community Radio
We’re always interested in hearing from our readers and recently received an email from Myke Atkinson, the Station Manager of University of Calgary-based community radio station CJSW-FM in Calgary, Canada. He had written a piece about community radio for the National Campus/Community Radio Association’s email list and thought that it would be of interest to […]
The WIUS Reunions: Why We Keep Hearing the Voices in Our Heads, Part 2
We love to share stories about college radio history and in this guest post (part two of two), Greg Barman gives the back story on campus radio at Indiana University, which dates back to the launch of a carrier current station in 1962 (read more about that in part one). Today, students run low power […]
University of Virginia to Launch LPFM College Radio Station WXTJ-LP
In the coming months, a low power FM (LPFM) student radio station will launch at University of Virginia with the call letters WXTJ-LP. After operating as a streaming radio station for a few years (initially called WTJX), students will soon be taking their shows to the terrestrial airwaves in Charlottesville, Virginia (at 100.1 FM) alongside […]
The WIUS Reunions: Why We Keep Hearing the Voices in Our Heads, Part 1
We love to share stories about college radio history and in this guest post (part one of two), Greg Barman gives the back story on campus radio at Indiana University, which dates back to the launch of a carrier current station in 1962. Today, students run low power FM station WIUX-LP. Station alumni are gearing […]
College Radio Watch: Saving College Radio History at WMUC and WPRB + More News
It’s no secret that I’m very interested in the preservation of college radio history and I’m happy to see more and more stations taking on projects to ensure that the importance of college radio is shared more widely. Earlier this week, Laura Schnitker wrote a piece for Antenna that beautifully describes her work archiving college […]
Digging in to the Early History of High School Radio Station KBPS
A few months back, in honor of High School Radio Day, I wrote about possibly the oldest high school radio station in the United States, KBPS-AM in Portland, Oregon. In the course of researching the Benson Polytechnic High School radio station, I learned that one of its General Managers, Patricia Green Swenson (who led the […]
Sound History is Cultural History: Primary Documents and Progressive Radio Research
A few weeks ago, FlowTV published a special issue devoted to the Radio Preservation Task Force. The issue features articles on a range of topics in radio history. In the coming days, we will share a brief reflection of all the articles in the issue, but for now, we would like to share (or, rather, […]
College Radio Watch: WPRB Launches History Site Celebrating 75 Years of College Radio at Princeton + more news
A little over a year ago I met Michael Lupica, the advisor for Princeton University’s college radio station WPRB-FM in Princeton, New Jersey. He and I both attended the Saving College Radio Symposium at University of Maryland and we chatted a bit about college radio history as we took in the wonderful WMUC exhibit in […]