Commercial radio in the UK turns 40 years-old this week. Here in the US we tend to take for granted that broadcast media would be funded by commercials interrupting our programs several times an hour. But the rest of the world came to embrace the commercial system much more slowly. The development of commercial broadcasting […]
A Bangalore based radio station dedicated to exploring ‘gender fluidity’ is making waves in India and the rest of the world, judging by the level of media coverage it has gotten. The “Q” in Q Radio “stands for queer,” explains a station staffer in the YouTube video below. “It is for the LBGT community. It […]
The 24th BBC World Service International Radio Playwriting Competition is open, and I want more Radio Survivor readers to enter the contest. The Holy Grail is one of two first prizes (which include cash, BTW): a best play written by someone who knows English as a First Language or a best play written by someone […]
Round two of applications for the United Kingdom’s Community Radio Fund 2013/14 will begin on Wednesday October 9 and will close about a month later on November 6. The first round concluded in mid-July. The window is being run by the UK’s Ofcom agency, roughly equivalent to the United States’ Federal Communications Commission. As with the […]
While Syria’s bloody civil war increasingly looks like a stalemate, and the US has held off on retaliatory bombing in favor of chemical weapons inspections, brave broadcasters are taking risks to bring free flowing information and news to the people of Syria through their radio dials. Where the local press is tightly controlled by the […]
Radio Africa host Ruhila Adatia-Sood was known as a “celebrity presenter” in Nairobi. Kenya’s “gossip girl,” others called her. A fixture on radio and TV outlets, she was hosting a cooking competition for children at the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi when terrorists descended upon the area last Saturday, killing over sixty civilians and wounding […]
Last week I asked what outside and independent news and information sources are available inside Syria. In particular, I wondered what radio outlets are available. Tom Fudge, news director of KPBS, provides an answer to my question in a story aired last Thursday. He talked with a handful of independent Syrian journalists who visited San […]
Meet Radio Barkas, by its own description: “the smallest mobile radio station in the Netherlands.” I am not sure whether Barkas actually broadcasts via an AM or FM signal. It seems to mostly travel around the Low Countries and the rest of Europe in a tiny green-on-the-inside-grey-on-the-outside Fiat-like automobile. Inside the vehicle sits a turntable […]
As I publish this piece Wednesday evening it is increasingly likely there will be military attacks on Syria by the US, Britain and allies in response to evidence that the Syrian government carried out chemical weapons attacks on its own citizens. It is certainly a tense situation, and for the people of Syria the situation […]
The New York Times has an interesting profile of former BBC journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown, a prominent voice in the struggle against deforestation in Malaysia. The daughter of a colonial era Malaysian police officer, Brown contributes to Radio Free Sarawak, a shortwave operation with an estimated ten thousand listeners. “If you have a problem in […]
