WFMU in Jersey City’s Beware of the Blog blog has some interesting audio artifacts from the Korean War: reel-to-reel audio letters from an Army doctor to his wife back in the states, circa 1954, just as the conflict was winding down. The surgeon who produced these ancient proto-podcasts worked at the 121 Evacuation Hospital in […]
I’ve written up 68 radio station tours since 2008 and have probably visited close to 100 stations total. Nearly 50 of those visits were to college radio stations all over the country (plus a few in Ireland). My goal has always been to spread the gospel of college radio to not only the masses, but […]
Updated with quote from CHIRP General Manager Shawn Campbell, below. Just eight more low-power FM construction permits were issued in the last week, bringing the total to 1,476. Yesterday Matthew reported on the new LPFM station bringing an interesting mix of alternative and public bilingual programming to Bisbee, AZ. There are two more new stations […]
PRX’s Radiotopia ended its Kickstarter last Friday at $620,412, which is 148% more than its initial goal of $250,000. The money will help fund four new podcasts–three hosted by women–along with financing a development fund for more new shows. On Tuesday Apple reported that the Serial podcast from This American Life has become the fastest-downloaded […]
About a year ago, just as the Federal Communications Commission was approving applications for Low Power FM construction permits, I wrote up a list of contenders with the most attention grabbing names. These include Bakersfield Burrito, Shaggers, Electron Benders, and Rusting Sprocket Art. But the most intriguing applicant, at least for me, was the Global […]
As the end of the year approaches, I’m already starting to think about what the overarching themes of 2014 were for college radio. Like many recent years, it’s been a mix of good and bad news this year. The situation at Georgia State University’s WRAS-FM is a high profile example of public radio’s ongoing interest […]
As of today, 1468 new low power FM (LPFM) construction permits have been issued as a result of the fall 2013 application window. As 2014 draws to a close, we’re hearing more and more about the plans for many of these new stations. In case you missed our other LPFM coverage this week, be sure […]
Since my first post for the Radio Survivor Academic Series, the Radio Preservation Task Force has started to accumulate finding aids from regional archival collections. Just prior to the deadline for Research Associates to submit their finding aids to their Regional Directors, it was reported that approximately 250 archives and contacts had been aggregated, which […]
Alex Blumberg’s podcasting company Gimlet Media just crowd-funded $200,00 in less than two days. Only the company didn’t use Kickstarter, Indiegogo or another familiar platform. Instead Gimlet invited qualified investors to become actual equity stakeholders under a provision of the 2012 JOBS Act. Gimlet ran this campaign using the help of a new platform called […]
WQXR-FM’s Meet the Composer podcast is now around half a year old, and it has already become a wonderful resource. I just finished listening to the latest episode, focusing on the Brazilian composer Marcos Balter. “As a composer, [Balter] writes an almost unthinkable amount of music, and not all of it works,” observes MTC host and […]
