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 […]
Archive | Noncommercial Radio
Long Island Pubcaster Up for Sale
Clear Channel, Cumulus and their commercial radio brethren are not the only ones facing economic hard times right now. While public radio in general may be doing better, it’s not necessarily the case for individual stations. The most recent example is Southampton, NY’s WLIU which is being put up for sale by Long Island University […]
Radio Obsessive Profile #2: Jose Fritz's Arcane Radio Trivia
I’m awed by all the radio enthusiasts, collectors, historians, and scholars out there; so I’m going to try to feature some of my favorites on Radio Survivor in a new feature called Radio Obsessives. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my interview with Garrett Wollman about his fascination with radio towers is what […]
Freelance Reporter Explains How Radio Is Made
Cyrus Farivar is a freelance radio journalist who files stories for programs like PRI’s the World and NPR’s Morning Edition. On his blog he recently posted a breezy and clear explanation of his process for pitching, recording and editing a radio news piece. As someone who produces an independent weekly radio program on the cheap, […]
College Radio Being Exported to Promote Study Abroad
I just learned about a soon-to-be-launched online radio station in Taiwan called Oh! Zone that will be programmed entirely with foreign content from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. What’s cool to me is that the station is picking and choosing specific programs from college radio stations in an attempt to […]
Princeton Review's Bogus College Radio Rankings
It’s time for my annual rant about the Princeton Review college survey! Every year they survey college students from all over the land (at 371 colleges this time around) in order to learn more about campus life for their “Best Colleges” guide that they market to high school students. 300ish students on average are surveyed […]
Remembering Save KPFA Day
Ten years ago this Friday, one of the most remarkable events in the annals of United States broadcasting took place. Looking back on it now, I can hardly believe that it happened, even though I was there and saw it myself. On a very sunny Saturday July 31, 1999, about ten thousand people gathered in […]
College Radio Read: Kill the Music
I love reading stories about radio and every time I run across a college radio mention in a book, my interest in piqued. In the months to come I’m going to work on compiling a list of college radio “must reads,” from the academic to the autobiographic. My first pick: Kill the Music. Kill the […]
Even the Most Passionate Young Music Lovers Eschew Commercial Radio
The commercial radio industry’s reaction to last week’s Boston Globe article reporting on the relative dearth of young listeners can be fairly summed up, as “Nuh uhhhh! Not true!” Despite radio’s collective denial, I had this reality reaffirmed for me this past Friday. I had the opportunity to speak with a group of high school […]
Noncommercial Leaps Past Commercial with Public Radio Player 2.0
I’m actually amazed at how noncommercial radio has become the site of so much innovation in the medium in the last decade, and how commercial radio is getting left in the dust. On the music side we have Seattle’s indie rock KEXP and New Jersey’s freeform WFMU which both have significant internet listenership along with […]