The public service obligation of radio broadcasters has changed, and not for the better. That reality is what’s driving a group of Oregon volunteers to create the Portland Radio Project, a new locally-oriented online station that starts streaming October 18. The group is running a Kickstarter for $100,000 to build and fund a station that […]
At Radio Survivor we obsess about radio consolidation every day of the year, but this topic isn’t pervasive across mainstream popular culture. Because of that, I was excited to hear about a new film, Corporate FM, which delves into the “downfall of commercial FM.” The movie premieres tonight at 8:30pm at the Kansas City Film […]
Time and time again we are reminded of the vital importance of terrestrial radio following a natural disaster. Just this week, six commercial radio stations in Joplin, Missouri have stepped up following the horrific tornado there. As was the case after the recent tornado in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and after the hurricane in Haiti; radio has […]
The Federal Communications Commission is commissioning nine economic studies on the state of the media industry, and numbers five and six couldn’t come too soon as far as I’m concerned. Here they are: Study 5: Quantity of radio news and public affairs programming provided and audience for radio news programming as a function of local […]
The Federal Communications Commission’s Diversity Officer defended himself this morning from the veritable avalanche of attacks he has sustained since he took his job. Speaking at a Washington, D.C. conference, Mark Lloyd asked to be allowed to “clear away some mud:” “I am not a Czar appointed by President Obama. I am not at the […]
The Texas Association of Broadcasters opposes the FCC’s proposed localism rules. Why not? Everybody else does. Two years ago this December the Federal Communications Commission proposed a quartet of new regulations to nudge radio stations to provide more local news, music, and public affairs programming. These included rules requiring a certain amount of local programming […]
Sometimes you have to hand it to the financial press, there’s nothing like a little money to make them believe in old fashioned values, like localism, again. Any keen observer of the commercial radio landscape knows that right now the nation’s largest radio station owners are certainly not making money. But, as the Wall Street […]
On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission, by a bare majority, voted to lift its over three decade old prohibition against an entity owning a newspaper and a television station in the same market. Most FCC watchers will now shift their visors to Congress and the circuit courts, where media reform activists will doubtless turn in […]
