RIP Art Bell, Who Brought Freeform Call-In Radio Nationwide
Late night talk radio innovator Art Bell has died at the age of 72. He passed away in his sleep, at home in Pahrump, Nevada on Friday, April 13. For the night owls, insomniacs, late-shift and early-morning workers, Bell was a comforting voice crackling through the AM airwaves on his shows “Coast to Coast AM” […]
College Radio Watch: KFJC Broadcasts from Primitive Guitar Fest and More News
Over the next few days, the station where I volunteer, Foothill College radio station KFJC-FM is broadcasting live from a music festival several thousand miles from home. With a fixation on underground music and a growing obsession with undertaking ambitious remote broadcasts from afar; my KFJC cohorts continue to amaze me (see my tech-heavy account […]
Podcast #137 – Zach Poff Built a Radio Station Inside a Pond
Zach Poff put a radio station inside a pond. Poff is a media artist, educator and maker-of-things, and he explains that project and talks about making art with radio technology and listening to sound art. Show Notes Zach Poff’s Pond Station is broadcasting live during the day-light hours from just below the surface of a […]
An Affectionate & Honest Filmic Portrait of Negativland’s Don Joyce
Musician, DJ and radio artist Don Joyce passed away nearly three years ago, on July 22, 2015. He left behind a voluminous archive of his KPFA radio program “Over the Edge,” which took off in new, chaotic and creative directions when he welcomed the participation of the experimental band Negativland in 1981, then joining the […]
College Radio Watch: CMJ Lawsuit, WREK’s 50th, Station Tours, and More News
On this week’s Radio Survivor Podcast/radio show, I’m pleased to share two of my most recent college radio station tour reports. In the episode, Paul Riismandel and I chat about my visits to WIIT at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and WKCR at Columbia University in New York City. Both stations are super interesting, […]
Podcast #136 – Storied College Stations WIIT & WKCR
Jennifer Waits takes us on tours of two storied college stations, with deep roots in their communities. WIIT-FM is the student station at the Illinois Institute of Technology, housed in the modern Rem Koolhaas designed McCormick Tribune Campus Center situated at the intersection of Chicago’s Bronzeville and Bridgeport neighborhoods. WKCR is Columbia University’s station, with […]
FM Radio Is Here To Stay in the UK
When Norway completed the shutdown of its national FM radio signals the tech sites and blogs were all breathless in reporting the news. But, despite the strong currents of digital triumphalism, the way of Norway is not a sign of things to come for analog radio. As Norway paved the way for the wholesale move […]
College Radio Watch: Was WBWC the First Student-Operated Radio Station? Plus More News
College radio history is near and dear to my heart and I appreciate it when stations celebrate their origin stories. With many stations purporting to be the “first” at this or that, I’m always eager to dive into long-lost documents in order to sleuth out the veracity of station lore. As any historian or journalist […]
Podcast #135 – Resurfacing Women’s Contributions in Podcasting History
Women made significant contributions to the initial development of podcasting that have been forgotten. Historian Jennifer Hyland-Wang has been resurfacing these contributions, and drawing parallels with women’s contributions to the formative years of radio. She joins us on this episode to share this history and examine the ways in which the structural biases of the […]
Smooshing Stalin’s death and a scary radio story into one movie
The Death of Stalin begins with a terrifying radio story. Did it actually happen?