Last week I wrote about the fun collection of vintage college radio playlists that I came across from the 1970s and 1980s. That post prompted some interesting responses from former college radio DJs and current college radio programmers, sharing some of their tales and also word that other playlist collections are out there. This week […]
Archive | History
College Radio Flashback: Covering Campus Disturbances in the 1960s and 70s
I’ve been thumbing through a couple of bound editions of IBS’ The Journal of College Radio from 1970 to 1972 and it’s an incredible look at college radio in that era. Concerns of the day included potential policy changes for carrier-current broadcasters, questions about the FCC’s rules on obscenity (not much has changed!), and excitement […]
How the FBI worked with radio to investigate the song “Louie Louie”
Our regular Welcome to Night Vale correspondent Aidan Herrick has written an excellent research paper (pdf) on the 1960s era Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation of the song “Louie Louie.” Why the probe? Because parents across the United States were complaining to the government that The Kingsmen’s 1963 remake of the Richard Berry song contained […]
A Glimpse of College Radio’s Past in Playlists from the 1970s and 1980s
An exciting envelope recently arrived in the mail, containing a stack of vintage college radio station playlists from the 1970s and 1980s. Mostly handwritten or typed on typewriters, the “music surveys” capture lists of the most recently added music to these station’s libraries. Sometimes broken down by genre or divided by different types of rotation […]
College Radio Watch: College Radio Scholarship Featured in Special Issue of Interactions
Scholars focused on college radio are a pretty tiny subset of the already small universe of radio scholars, so I am thrilled to see the publication of a student radio-themed issue of Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture this week. Brian Fauteux shared the news yesterday on Radio Survivor and he and I also have […]
Free Access to Special Journal Edition on College Radio
A special journal edition devoted to college, student, and university radio has just been published by Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. Excitingly, the issue is open access and available to all readers. This is also a special issue as it features original articles by Radio Survivor’s Jennifer Waits as well as by me. Given […]
Where is the Oldest High School Radio Station in the United States?
Happy High School Radio Day! Because of my fascination with radio history, it seems like a great day to delve into the history of high school radio. As is the case with college radio, multiple stations lay claim to being the first on the air. (more…)
Grassroots radio gets profile in new online archive
There’s a lot of remarkable stuff to check out in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting’s new work-in-progress website. Sure, there will be plenty of public TV footage of George Lucas and John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan and wuddever. But the content will also include a boatload of material from the Pacifica Radio Archives, WFMU in Jersey […]
College Radio Watch: Students at WRAS-FM File Appeal, Visit to WRVG-LP, and WKNC’s History Project
A big piece of college radio news this week was the announcement that students at WRAS-FM at Georgia State University (GSU) have filed an appeal with the University System of Georgia (USG) Board of Regents, protesting the loss of daytime FM airtime for students over WRAS-FM and arguing that student funds were misappropriated. Last year, […]
Saving the Endangered Sounds of Detroit’s Radio History
From time to time, the Radio Survivor Academic Series has been pointing to noteworthy articles and posts that have been shared by other excellent sound and audio related blogs and which are connected to the Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF). Recently, Sounding Out! has been featuring specific archival collections that are a focus of the […]