I spent the morning at the National Federation of Community Broadcasters conference here in San Francisco. First stop: a panel on the dos-and-don’ts of underwriting acknowledgements. Expert attorney Michael Berg spoke on the subject, and offered a very nice advisory handout on slogans and logos, from which I draw the following wisdom. Bottom line: the […]
Mid-way through my week of radio station genre charts, I started to realize that “charts” isn’t really the most accurate way to describe the music genre signage that I’ve spotted at various radio stations. I guess it’s more appropriately a music genre categorization schematic or a legend or a key. Genre “charts” are more likely […]
Last week I started my new Radio Survivor Scavenger Hunt series, in which I’m sharing pictures of items that I’ve spotted at radio stations during my travels. The first week focused on station graffiti and this week’s quest will reveal a range of music genre charts that I’ve seen at stations. Interestingly, many non-commercial stations […]
The United Kingdom’s broadcast regulatory agency says that it has authorized the licensing of community radio stations on the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes the islands of Alderney and Sark, all part of the Channel Islands. This is a bit complicated, because Guernsey, which is located off the coast of northern France, is not actually […]
Over the weekend I had the most amazing time at the What is Radio? conference in Portland, Oregon. Scholars and radio practitioners from all over the world convened in order to talk about the past, present, and future of radio. One of the most powerful panel discussions was Friday’s “Making Waves Behind Bars” session. Phil […]
An uncompromising voice for human rights, unafraid to make unrestrained and harsh criticisms of local and federal officials, is still heard on the airwaves of Illinois capital city. Despite multiple letters and visits from the FCC over the years, the Springfield, Illinois unlicensed station Human Rights Radio celebrated its 25th anniversary last fall. This week […]
Record Store Day, the annual celebration of independent record stores, will take place all over the world on Saturday, April 20th. Non-commercial radio and independent record stores often have a synergistic relationship, so it makes sense that they would be natural partners for this event. Over the years I’ve heard about interesting collaborations between radio […]
For reasons that remain a mystery to me (and I’m sure others), the Board of Directors of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters has dismissed NFCB President, Maxie Jackson. An article in Current quotes a very unhappy Vice President Ginny Berson confiding that she’d been told “style issues” and differences in vision prompted the ouster. […]
I am continuing to peruse the Federal Communication Commission’s latest regulations for Low Power FM stations. The FCC promises an application window around October. Some of the rules make obvious sense. Others strike me as pretty gnarly, the gnarliest among them the provisions for voluntary and involuntary time sharing of LPFM stations. I wonder how […]
There are reports from Zimbabwe indicating that the crackdown on independent radio is stepping up. Shortwave station SW Radio Africa reports that police in the town of Rusape went on raids of opposition party supporters looking for shortwave radios (via SWLing post). However a member of parliament said that the police found no radios. According […]
