You’ve seen the bumper stickers, and today at least it’s true for Family Radio. Their website has been unreachable all day, likely due to being overloaded with traffic. So that’s also made it difficult to get their online radio stream. So I tuned in to Family Radio’s shortwave station WYFR this afternoon (at 13615 Khz) […]
Editor’s Note: Radioactive Gavin has collected more than 300 articles on radio and digital music over the past 3 months for Common Frequency. This is the second in a series of seven posts he is contributing, looking back at the end of a rough year in radio. When Stephen Colbert gave a ‘medal of fear’ to a seven-year old […]
Thank you, dear reader, for spending a little of your online attention with us. We Radio Survivors really appreciate it. When Matthew and I first talked about creating this site nearly eighteen months ago we were motivated by the relative dearth of radio coverage that wasn’t focused on radio insiders but not narrowly focused on […]
The Federal Communications Commission has put the finishing touches on its rules for “white space” broadband devices—that is, gadgets that can send and receive high speed Internet across unused TV channels. Rolling out the service will be very tricky, since it involves portable gizmos that link to mobile or fixed machines that link to a […]
John Bergmayer of Public Knowledge has a great interview with Ken Freedman, station manager of WFMU-FM in Jersey City, New Jersey. WFMU is a trailblazing radio station which was in the forefront of both the free form and dot.com eras. The dialogue is a terrific read, because it encapsulates all the dilemmas facing Internet radio […]
Continuing its series of workshops–which are more informal than hearings–on a variety of important topics, the FCC will hold one on the topic of “Public and Other Noncommercial Media in the Digital Era.” This workshop is part of the Commission’s project on the Future of Media and the Information Needs of Communities. This day-long workshop […]
Yesterday Edison Research and Arbitron (ARB) released the latest findings from their ongoing series of studies about the convergence of radio and technology. The Infinite Dial 2010: Digital Platforms and the Future of Radio is based on a February, 2010 telephone survey of more than 1700 people in the United States and serves as a […]
I am rereading portions of German composer Bertold Brecht’s famous 1932 essay “The radio as an apparatus of communications,” and I am confused. Is he really talking about radio? The medium, Brecht wrote, “is one-sided when it should be two- . . . ” “It is purely an apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. […]
Next Tuesday the Federal Communications Commission will reveal the entirety of its National Broadband Plan, over a year in the making. Required by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which authorized $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus spending, The Plan will weigh in on about a thousand broadband related subjects—how to help more people get it, […]
There was once a time when a rare breed of radio DJ could scare up controversy and big ratings–not to mention FCC indecency fines–using just his voice, a few on-air cronies and whole lot of bravado, innuendo and hot air. Remember Howard Stern? Arguably the original “shock jock” he was one of the few American […]
