Matthew Lasar talks with Brian Edwards-Tiekert, host of KPFA’s Upfront to commemorate the Birthday of Pacifica Radio.
Archive | Rough Notes
FCC’s Proposal to Legitimize FrankenFMs Proves It Isn’t in the Business of Taking Stations off the Air
The FCC is not in the business of taking licensed radio stations off the air. This is something I’ve been telling community and college radio folks for well over a decade, especially when they get themselves tied up in knots of anxiety trying to read certain regulations like literary theory, worried that a fine over […]
Rough Notes: BBC Profiles 4 Community Stations Around the World; Inter-American Court Sides with Indigenous Station; Mazda Owners Stuck on KUOW
This past Sunday, February 13, was World Radio Day. I’m a few days late in recognizing it, but still have something good to share. Like last year, the BBC tapped radio journalist David Goren to produce a documentary highlighting community radio around the globe. “World Wide Waves ’22” profiles four stations: Koori Radio is the […]
Rough Notes: Franken FMs Live On, BBC Geofences, More CD Revival, WBCN Book
Franken FMs are the radio service that refuses to die, even after the FCC ostensibly pulled the plug this past summer. Recall that these are former analog low-power TV stations on channel 6 whose audio could be heard at about 87.7 FM. Analog LPTV shut down on July 13, 2021, but then Venture Technologies Group […]
Rough Notes: RIP Howard Hesseman, WKRP’s Dr. Johnny Fever; Perfect Sound Forever, Again
Actor Howard Hesseman passed away on Saturday, Jan. 29, perhaps most well-known – at least to radio nerds – as the burned-out former hippy morning radio DJ Dr. Johnny Fever on sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati” for four seasons beginning in 1978. Hesseman was actually once a real radio DJ, for a short stint in 1967 […]
Rough Notes: Antarctic Radio Revisited & Jamming Soviet-Era Numbers
A belated happy New Year and welcome to 2022. It’s not quite a New Year’s resolution, but I want to return to regular blogging here at Radio Survivor, at least covering interesting radio stories of note, along with other radiophonic observations. With the Super Bowl coming in just under three weeks you can look forward […]
Tuning in Black Information Radio
I’ve been staying in the San Francisco Bay Area this week and stumbled upon an AM talk radio network that is new to me: the Black Information Network. The format mirrors that of conventional 24-hour all-news stations like KCBS, Los Angeles’ KNX, New York’s WINS or Philadelphia’s KYW, with regular headline news, business and entertainment […]
Audacity, the free audio software, is always getting better.
I really liked this new video about the people that make Audacity, the free open source audio editing software that is probably on a computer inside every community and college radio station in the world. I’ve been making radio for just about as long as Audacity has been available, and the thing that I love […]
The Vast of Night: a vast 1950s community radio/telecom fantasia
“The Vast of Night is a movie that takes its time, and thus serves as a wonderful reminder that every generation has its cutting edge telecom landscape, run by people who in their minds and hearts live in the future.”
The case for a Spotify wild card widget
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could plug a little widget into your playlist that allowed Spotify to pick just one tune based on its AI take on your choices? Maybe. Or maybe not.