The government shutdown was the topic of our weekly email newsletter, the Radio Survivor Bulletin, this week. In it we touched on its effect on the upcoming low-power FM licensing window, as well as the impact on indecency and unlicensed broadcast enforcement. Here is an update on the LPFM front. Four business days of government […]
We’re nearly a full work-week into the government shutdown, and there have been many questions about what the effect will be on radio braodcasters. I covered this topic in this past week’s Radio Survivor Bulletin email newsletter. What follows is an updated version of that piece. To make sure you receive exclusive news and content […]
The Federal Communications Commission’s website is mostly down for the duration of the Federal government funding outage. Looks like the whole application filing system is temporarily kaput, which is probably bad news for the impending Low Power FM window, but we’ll have to see how long this crisis lasts. In the meantime, we are noticing […]
As the United States government faces a budgetary lights off switch, the Federal Communications Commission has published a Plan for Orderly Shutdown Due to Lapse of Congressional Appropriations. Here’s the plan’s bottom line: “Generally, during a shutdown all FCC activities other than those immediately necessary for the protection of life or property will cease. Suspended […]
A check-in on low-power FM was on the FCC’s meeting agenda on Thursday, and the most important news is that the Commission is ready for the license filing window opening in just over two weeks. Parul Desai of the Commission’s Audio Bureau reported that “hundreds” of organizations have already started filling out Form 318 online. […]
Six years ago Jennifer Strange signed up for Sacramento station KDND-FM‘s “Hold your wee for a Wii” contest and lost her life as a consequence. The mother of three followed the game rules, drinking almost two gallons of water without urinating. She died of water intoxication soon afterwards. Although a nurse called in to warn […]
An FCC action adopted yesterday serves as a good reminder to LPFM licensees to make sure to buy only FCC-approved transmission equipment. The Commission issued a citation and order (PDF) to a company called FCCFrequency for “marketing unauthorized radio frequency devices,” otherwise known as FM radio transmitters that are not approved by the FCC. A […]
By now everybody knows that Pandora has prevailed, at least for the moment, in its legal effort to win the right to stream all content from the ASCAP repertory. The Southern District of New York has ruled that efforts to limit what Pandora can play violated a consent decree between the online streamer and the […]
Last week I had a conversation about radio and musicians with Casey Rae, Executive Director of the Future of Music Coalition. He told me “Commercial radio has made it difficult for artists to have access to the airwaves, no matter how talented. Radio is still a big resource. This is why the musician community rallied […]
We’ve been reporting on the rapidly approaching low power FM (LPFM) licensing window and recently conducted a Twitter chat specifically on the topic of college radio and LPFM, but there are still plenty of people out there who are either unaware of the opportunity or who are reluctant to apply. It would be a shame […]
