Stevie Wonder’s case against the Arbitron Portable People Meter
Among the top Federal Communications Commission-related headlines this morning is Arbitron’s insistence, yet again, that the FCC doesn’t have regulatory authority over the alleged inadequacies of its controversial Portable People Meter (or PPM as it is acronymed). And RBR/TVBR.com (the “Voice of the Broadcasting Industry”) adds its growl to the chorus: “A note to new […]
Home-Brew Radio in a WWII POW Camp Shows Radio's Survivability
This interview with Lieutenant Colonel R G Wells who constructed a radio receiver and transmitter in a Japanese POW camp during World War II has been making the blog rounds recently (via free103point via BoingBoing via MAKE). Though somewhat technical, the account is a fascinating example of what a simple technology radio is given that […]
Garrett Wollman's Radio Tower Quest
Fandom is an amazing thing and thanks to the Internet it’s easier and easier to find like-minded obsessives who share one’s passion for the most obscure objects, idols, and idiosyncrasies. Radio is no exception. Loads of websites document radio history, with nostalgic archivists collecting ephemera, airchecks, and reminiscences from San Francisco to Boston. Various forums […]
Palin bows out as Alaska Gov. Is the next step talk radio?
Ever since John McCain made his disastrous decision to pick Sarah Palin as his running made in ’08, I’ve been saying that the winner of that election was her. It was only a matter of time, I told my circle of friends, before she ducked out of her gig as Alaska’s governor and cashed in […]
Radio's Murder of Music
I’m on a quest to document the early history of my college radio station WHRC, which began in the 1920s as a Haverford College Radio Club station known as WABQ. As I was doing a quick search for material today, I found a goldmine of vintage radio information on David Gleason’s website. For one thing, […]
Should the FCC count public radio station board members as owners?
The four major organizations that represent public broadcasting say the Federal Communications Commission shouldn’t count public radio and television station board members as the “owners” of the license in question.
Clear Channel Station Can't Trust Its Own Forecast
The irony would be so delectable if it weren’t for the 1033 unfortunate drivers whose cars were stuck in the mud, many of which were totaled and not returned for over a week. As Jerry Del Colliano reports at Inside Music Media, a Clear Channel station in Grand Rapids, MI threw its annual B93 Concert […]
AM on FM
Back in the early days of FM, when AM radio ruled the roost and an FM radio was still a rare commodity, many station owners simply simulcast their AM station’s programming on their FM stations. In the 1960s the Federal Communications Commission put the kibosh on that scheme, ordering FM stations to air different programming. […]
Celebrating Radio's Past and Future
It was a pretty momentous occasion a few weeks back when San Francisco commercial radio station KCBS celebrated 100 years of broadcasting. Well, sort of. As Ben Fong-Torres pointed out in his Radio Waves column on Sunday, KCBS’s predecessor KQW broadcast its first voice transmission over the radio in San Jose in 1909: It was […]
He may be a bigot, but at least he's for net neutrality
The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that it has busted “intermittent internet radio talk show host and blogger” Hal Turner for allegedly making murderous threats against three judges who issued a decision he didn’t like. “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These Judges deserve to be killed,” the FBI says Turner declared […]