Tom Scharpling announced on his program Tuesday that he is ending The Best Show on WFMU, broadcasting its final episode on December 17. Over the course of 13 years The Best Show has grown for itself a sizable and loyal nationwide audience that enjoys the host’s unique mix of on-air rants, real listener calls and […]
It looks like Commissioner Ajit Pai got a special Halloween treat from his fellow FCC commissioners with the adoption Thursday of a proposed rule making to revitalize the AM radio band (PDF). This looks like a parting gift of sorts from Acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn as she gets ready to pass the gavel to new […]
In her Tuesday keynote address to the Future of Music Summit, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel emphasized the still relevant role of radio in her remarks about the relationship between the music industry and the work of the Commission. First, she revealed that her brother is a professional bongo player, as a percussionist for the alt […]
Fighting off as-yet-undiagnosed intermittent internet issues I still managed to watch a good portion of several Monday sessions from the Future of Music Summit in Washington, DC. While I cannot report substantially on any one session, I can give my overall impressions of the day. It seems like there were three major recurring themes: 1. […]
On the heels of the news that Monitoring Times will close this year, comes the news of the closure of another radio publication. Industry magazine Broadcast Engineering announced on Friday that it will end publication this Thursday, October 31. Though probably not well known outside of the world of radio engineers and the people who […]
In our last post on the latest broadcast station statistics I noticed that while the number of FM radio stations is steadily increasing, the number of Low Power FM stations has been consistently declining. Take a look at the Federal Communications Commission’s broadcast station spreadsheet (excel download): over 860 LPFMs in March of 2010, down […]
The latest broadcast station count from the Federal Communications Commission is out. Quick headline: AM stations down; FM stations up. And the numbers please . . . “AM STATIONS 4728 FM COMMERCIAL 6613 FM EDUCATIONAL 3989” Those figures are as of September 30, 2013. When Radio Survivor’s Jennifer Waits looked into the situation in January, the […]
A lengthy article on The Deal Pipeline outlines some of the recent public radio transactions involving classical music radio stations in particular. For those of us who have monitored the deals mentioned in the piece, it’s a fascinating overview of what seems like increasing consolidation in public radio. Of interest to me, since I have […]
Now that the FCC is back in business and clearing out its queue the deadline for low-power FM applications has been extended to November 14 at 6 PM ET(PDF), two weeks later than the original October 29 date. This is shorter than what a group of LPFM advocacy has hoped for–they asked for an extension […]
As they promised, a coalition of low-power community radio support groups submitted a filing with the FCC today, the Commission’s first day back at work after the government shutdown, addressing the LPFM licensing window that was originally scheduled to open this past Tuesday. That filing has already been posted to the FCC’s database and is […]
