November 30 was the 20th anniversary of the “Battle of Seattle” protests against the World Trade Organization ministerial meetings in that Pacific Northwest city. The broad array of groups and 80,000 people who assembled understood they would not receive a fair hearing in the mainstream press, so they built their own internet-based platform to instantly […]
My 5th and final radio station visit at the end of a long day of Seattle touring brought me to an interesting arts enclave in Warren G. Magnuson Park in northeast Seattle. My destination, the newish low power FM (LPFM) community radio station SPACE 101.1 (KMGP-LP), which is a project of the Sand Point Arts […]
Live from the College Broadcasters, Inc. Convention in Seattle we take on college radio’s place in the contemporary media landscape. After deciding not to sell its radio station 13 years ago, the University of Evansville administration said, “we are once again examining the relevancy of the medium and exploring opportunities to enhance our curriculum through […]
This past weekend the New York Times published a story on low-power FM community radio, with a particular focus on Washington and Oregon, where there is a unique concentration of stations. In assembling his story correspondent Kirk Johnson visited many stations and talked with a host of broadcasters and advocates, including Radio Survivors Jennifer Waits, […]
We’ve seen some press coverage in the last week or so highlighting radios survival and revival. Though this is not news to the Radio Survivor faithful—it’s also not fake news—and we think it’s still a good thing to track and take note of. Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger highlights eight (!) new low-power FM community stations […]
KRAB-FM was the first station in what would become known as the “KRAB Nebula” of community stations that sprouted up around the U.S. in the 1960s and 70s. These 14 stations shared a common parentage in Lorenzo Milam, who helped found them, beginning with KRAB. First hitting the Seattle airwaves on December 12, 1962, KRAB […]
It was a slow week in LPFM approvals, with just five construction permits issued. There’s one time-sharing arrangement in the bunch, with two Catholic-associated organizations broadcasting on 106.5 FM in Raleigh, NC. The Corporation for Educational Advancement will be on from 2 PM to 2 AM seven days a week, while the Columbus Club of […]
Sixteen groups joined the ranks of those with low-power FM construction permits in the last week, bringing the grand total up to 1730 new stations going on the air. There were twenty-two applications dismissed in the same period. Fourteen of those dismissals come from groups in rural Oregon and the city of Bend that all […]
The Seattle and Puget Sound region of Washington State has been the site of some thoughtful local coordination around low-power FM, with Sabrina Roach at Brown Paper Tickets assisting a community of non-profit groups in the effort. Today they announced that 15 non-profits and universities are ready to apply for LPFM licenses when the FCC […]
I’m starting to think that HD Radio sub channels are turning into the land of misfit formats. Last Friday Seattle’s 22 year-old Adult Album Alternative station The Mountain 103.7 FM flipped to the Hot Adult Contemporary format with nearly no notice from Entercom, its owner. But instead of disappearing, The Mountain’s format lives on as […]
