For the editorial crew at Radio Survivor (Matthew Lasar, Paul Riismandel and myself), it’s a labor of love. Much like many non-commercial radio practitioners, we are reporting on radio because we are radio fans. We care about radio history, we monitor the current state of the medium, and we are hopeful that there’s a bright […]
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 […]
Bard College has submitted paperwork to the FCC in order to assign the license for WLHV-FM to Tri-State Public Communications, which operates Robin Hood Radio in Connecticut (WHDD-AM and WHDD-FM). Robin Hood’s website bills it as “the smallest NPR station in the nation.” According to the asset purchase agreement, the purchase price is $17,000. Currently […]
Last week Chicago Public Media CEO Torey Malatia published an Op-Ed piece in the public media journal Current, defending his station’s decision to cancel the syndicated Smiley & West program. Malatia’s piece appeared just days after Smiley & West returned to the Chicago airwaves on commercial station WCPT. In his op-ed Malatia lays out his […]
Emily Hellwell over at the Inside NPR blog has a piece titled “How Public Radio Scotch-Taped Its Way Into [the] Public Broadcasting Act.” I thought of titling this response post “How NPR took a scissors to public broadcasting history.” The essay acknowledges the most famous part of the story—that the 1969 law almost went through […]
There are reports that the license for Bethany College radio station WVBC-FM is in the process of being sold to Pittsburgh Public Media for use as a jazz station. According to an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “The nonprofit Pittsburgh Public Media (PPM), which owns a local online jazz radio station, has signed an agreement […]
This weekend Public Radio International’s Smiley and West program returned to the Chicago airwaves. Commercial progressive talk station WCPT starting airing the program Sunday, Nov. 4, and will continue airing it on Sundays at 3 PM. WVON, a commercial AM talk station focused on the African-American community, will carry the program on Saturdays at 11 […]
Chicago’s public radio station WBEZ quietly dropped the syndicated Smiley and West program from its Sunday line-up at the end of September. This stands in contrast to the station’s decision to drop Car Talk reruns from its Saturday line-up, which management communicated in an email to donor members explaining the decision and soliciting feedback (full […]
There’s controversy at NPR over the service’s latest 100 best-ever teen novels list. 75,220 NPR listeners voted for their favorite young adult novels. The list quickly drew fire for its lack of diversity. “Only two—yes, two—books on the list are written about main characters of color,” noted reading and English teacher Shaker Laurie in a […]
