Thursday the Third Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 2007 FCC decision that loosened rules restricting the co-ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations, known as the cross-ownership ban. At the end of that year the Kevin Martin-led FCC rushed through that last minute decision to erode the rule which generally prevented one company from […]
The fight over the future of University of San Francisco’s college radio station KUSF took an interesting turn yesterday when the FCC issued a “letter of inquiry” (PDF) about the proposed sale of the station to Classical Public Radio Network (CPRN). The letter dated June 28, 2011 asks University of San Francisco and CPRN to […]
Will it be 1978 all over again? That was the year the Supreme Court decided the seminal FCC v Pacifica case which legally established the constitutionality of the FCC’s ability to regulate indecent content in broadcast. But the media landscape of 2011 is very different than 1978. Today, network sitcoms airing as early as 8 […]
Ever since the passage of the Local Community Radio Act, the big question has been how the FCC will deal with its backlog of applications for translator repeater stations. Translators are low-power stations that may only rebroadcast the signal of an existing full-power station, and can be fit in many of the spaces on the […]
Catch up on stories you might have missed from the past week in radio. Dirty Money Talk radio’s biggest names are paid millions of dollars to “use a script, outline or set of talking points,” according to a new report. The Heritage Foundation pays roughly $2m for Rush Limbaugh and $1.3 for Sean Hannity. Glenn […]
Internet radio has transformed radio, the Federal Communications Commission’s new report on media observes. But it isn’t clear whether the medium’s economics will facilitate the growth of local online radio journalism. There are two economic/technological impediments, the FCC’s newly released Information Needs of Communities notes. First, bandwidth costs—a problem we’ve discussed here as well: “We […]
It’s been quite some time since I can recall the FCC imploring a U.S. Attorney to issue a warrant to shut down an unlicensed FM station. In fact, it’s quite a rare action, usually reserved for long-running stations that either have been utterly unresponsive to administrative notices or have operated for a long time out […]
The hype surrounding Family Radio’s prediction of Judgment Day and the Rapture on May 21 (and subsequent pronouncement that the Rapture will be delayed until October 21, 2011) not only attracted the attention of mainstream media, religious scholars, and atheists; but it also has led to much conversation amongst proponents of non-commercial educational radio. Before […]
Just in time for the start of the latest radio station license-renewal cycle, the FCC opens up for question the notion of abolishing the public file requirement for broadcasters. This is not a self-imposed initiative: it is a consideration the agency is mandated to make, courtesy of the Paperwork Reduction Act. It requires regulatory agencies […]
On Tuesday, April 12 the FCC approved University of San Francisco’s revised request to move the transmitter for KUSF out of San Francisco to Sausalito and issued a Construction Permit (PDF). This “minor change in licensed facilities” request, made on behalf of Classical Public Radio Network (which is awaiting FCC approval on its application to […]
