With the new Biden administration in place, we’ve quickly seen a series of leadership shifts at the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and its related international broadcasting groups, including Voice of America (VOA). Up until his final weeks, Trump-appointed CEO Michael Pack had been installing conservative allies throughout the organization and its affiliates. […]
Archive | Government
Podcast #281 – Wrapping Up Section 230 & the VOA
There are a few stories we were watching closely at the end of 2020, and we wanted to bring listeners up to date. First up is Section 230, the law that provides a degree of immunity to online platforms – from social media to community radio stations – for consequences resulting from what their users […]
Podcast #212 – Border Radio in North America
Radio waves don’t obey borders, and stations have been taking advantage of this fact since the dawn of the medium – often despite the rules of government regulators where the signals go. Dr. Kevin Curran of Arizona State University has been studying border radio stations extensively, making it the subject of his doctoral dissertation. Everyone […]
Podcast #183 – Can Congress Stop Pirate Radio?
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the “Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement Act,” but does it actually have a chance at putting a dent in unlicensed broadcasting? We review the provisions of the the bill – called the PIRATE Act for short – and wonder if an uptick in the war on pirates […]
Podcast #85 – Dreaming of a Better CPB
The president’s proposed budget would eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by 2018. Radio Survivor’s own Matthew Lasar joins to help us put this attack on public broadcasting in historical perspective. He analyzes the inherent weakness in the design of the CPB and proposes ways in which the system could be both stronger […]
A Legacy of Failure: FCC and Media Ownership Policy
Four years ago, on July 7, 2011, the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a second “remand” to the Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to weaken its media ownership rules. When a court remands an action by a government agency, it is telling the agency that the decision is somehow wrong, often procedurally wrong, and needs to be revised. The […]
FM in Norway Isn’t Dead, Says Norwegian Local Radio Association
Reports of FM’s death in Norway are premature. That’s according to the Norwegian Local Radio Association (NLF – Norse Lokalradio Forbund in Norwegian) which sent us a press release saying that 200 local commercial and community radio stations outside the country’s four largest cities will continue broadcasting in analog. Waves were made in the international […]
Norway’s Digital Radio Transition Is an Outlier
See our most recent update to this story: FM in Norway Isn’t Dead, Says Norwegian Local Radio Association Last Thursday Norway’s Ministry of Culture announced the national transition from analog FM to digital DAB radio beginning on January 11, 2017. This move, akin to the digital television transition the US made in 2009, has been […]
The Library of Congress Launches Radio Preservation Task Force
Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago, John Anderson shared with Radio Survivor readers some details about a Library of Congress initiative focused on the preservation of local radio history all over the country. As he mentioned, The Radio Preservation Task Force is now hard at work identifying radio collections in every corner of the United […]
Library of Congress Launches Local Radio Preservation Project
I mentioned this initiative a few months ago when I first heard about it, but the details have only recently been released. Can you help us assemble a national archive of local radio broadcasts? The official name of this project is the Radio Preservation Task Force, being conducted under the auspices of the LoC’s National […]