The Pacifica Foundation has found a new executive director, more than a year after the organization’s national board fired former ED Summer Reese, who then occupied the foundation’s national offices for nearly two months until a judge issued a restraining order forcing her to leave. The new ED is John Proffitt, who served twenty-five years […]
Earlier this week I posted my 81st radio station field trip article. It was a pretty epic road trip to see WONC-FM at North Central College, as it had snowed 5 inches the night before and it continued to snow during our drive. I felt badly for our hosts, who took it in stride that […]
Seven new low-power FM construction permits granted in the last week bring the grand total up to 1792. One goes to third largest media market in the US, Chicago, where the Legend Media Network Group will serve the Ghanaian and broader African community of the city’s far north side at 98.3 FM. Ninety miles to […]
Since the FCC passed its new Open Internet rules, reclassifying internet service as a telecommunications utility, I’ve fielded some questions–occasionally hushed, others less so–about if there might be another edge to this sword. Concerns seem to be sparked by the Commission’s recent decision to throw the book at a Roanoke, VA television station for the […]
Monday Jay-Z’s newly acquired TIDAL streaming music service pulled back the curtain on its relaunch, but just a little bit. As predicted, TIDAL is adding a compressed music service, competing with the likes of Spotify, to accompany its lossless CD-quality HiFi service. The compressed service is $9.99 a month, while the lossless version is double […]
When last I meditated on my recent experiences at SXSW in Austin, I was commenting on the lack of interest in AM/FM among musicians with whom I spoke. It is unclear to me, however, whether those artists were representative of the broader creative population. I am certain that staffers and deejays from NPR and the […]
When I scheduled my visit to North Central College’s radio station WONC-FM, I had no idea that a spring snow storm would hit. Undeterred, my husband I and embarked on a road trip through the Chicago suburbs on Monday, March 23rd to see the recently-named IBS College Radio Station of the Year. (more…)
In this week’s Radio Survivor Bulletin (are you subscribed yet?), I wrote an extended piece about college radio in the 1970s. At the time, campus-only carrier current stations were HUGE and some large universities even had multiple stations serving different dorms. The music industry was taking notice of college radio and a 1971 Billboard article […]
This week was a little bit busier for low power FM (LPFM) hopefuls. Twenty one groups were granted permits this week and 17 applications were dismissed, bringing the grand total of granted applications to 1,785 from the fall 2013 application window. (more…)
Rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z is throwing his hat into the streaming music arena with his acquisition last week of the Swedish company Aspiro and its two music services WiMP and TIDAL. WiMP is a Spotify competitor only available in Scandinavia, Germany and Poland. TIDAL is a CD-quality lossless service available in 31 countries world-wide, including […]
