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Matthew Lasar talks with Brian Edwards-Tiekert, host of KPFA’s Upfront to commemorate the Birthday of Pacifica Radio.
The post Podcast #339- 75 Years of Listener Supported Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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In the last few years YouTube has become one of the most popular platforms for consuming podcasts, even though it’s a primarily a video platform, and podcasts have traditionally been an audio-first medium. This fact has raised both questions and concerns with podcasters. Paul has worked on research studies intended to better understand why and how people use YouTube to consume podcasts. He shares that data along with analyses and thoughts on how podcasters might think about YouTube and video.
The post Podcast #338 – YouTube, Video and Podcasting appeared first on Radio Survivor.
The Radio Survivor team returns for a new episode, during which Jennifer, Eric and Paul recap some of the latest radio news. Topics this week including LPFM, college radio history, radio documentaries, expanding and returning radio stations, and a slow radio broadcast for Earth Day.
Jennifer talks about her new gig working on a college radio history collection that is part of the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC) on the Internet Archive.
Additionally, we cover some updates to the radio landscape, including details about the most recent low-power FM licensing window, during which 388 groups (and counting) have been awarded construction permits for new LPFM stations. In San Francisco, streaming radio station BFF.fm is the recipient of one of these coveted spots on the dial.
Also coming to the San Francisco airwaves is Seattle-based non-commercial radio station KEXP, which acquired the former KREV full-power FM commercial frequency in a bankruptcy auction. Across the country in New York City, streaming community radio station East Village Radio is returning after it ceased operations nearly a decade ago.
A few radio stories are coming to the big screen. 35,000 Watts, a documentary about college radio, has made its debut and is initially hitting the college radio circuit. Jennifer will be in attendance at a 35,000 Watts screening and panel discussion at Pomona College on March 28th as part of a fundraising event for college radio station KSPC. Another radio film in the works, 40 Watts to Nowhere, recounts the story of pirate radio station KBLT, which ran out of founder Sue Carpenter’s home in Silver Lake near Los Angeles in the late 1990s.
Finally, we alert stations to an opportunity to participate in the annual Earth Day radio event: Wetland Project Slow Radio Broadcast on April 22, 2024. Stations can air all or part of the 24-hour broadcast featuring the sounds of nature, including birds, frogs, insects, and airplanes.
The post Podcast #337 – Catching up on Radio News including LPFM, a College Radio Archive, Documentaries, and More appeared first on Radio Survivor.
On this edition of the show, we explore public radio history, specifically the origins of public radio in the United States, including the important role played by college and university-based stations. Josh Shepperd joins to talk about his new book, Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting, which examines the intersections between the media reform movement, public broadcasting, educational technology and communications policy and research. Josh is an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder and is Director of the Radio Preservation Task Force at the Library of Congress.
The post Podcast #336 – Educational Radio and the Beginnings of Public Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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On this week’s show, we peek behind the scenes of The Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC). A project of the Internet Archive, the DLARC collection includes a range of amateur radio-related materials, including magazines, ham radio newsletters, podcasts and even discussion forums. Within the expansive library are items generally categorized as non-commercial radio, including pirate radio, shortwave, numbers stations, experimental radio, and “radio weirdness.” Additionally, every episode of the Radio Survivor Podcast was recently added to DLARC, which is how we learned about this archive. DLARC’s Curator Kay Savetz joins us on Radio Survivor to talk about not only the archive, but also how you can contribute.
The post Podcast #335 – Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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World College Radio Day takes place on October 6, 2023 and in honor of that, we dig into the early history of college radio on our latest episode of the show. Jennifer Waits walks us through her research about college radio in the 1920s and earlier, sharing details from a paper that she presented this past spring at the Radio Preservation Task Force Conference at the Library of Congress. In that paper, she argues that we should be broadening our definitions of what college radio is, pointing out examples of radio clubs, radio experiments, and amateur radio activities that mirror the activities of future “broadcast” stations.
Jennifer recounts stories from more than 100 years ago, pointing out the incredible contributions that students have made to radio history. Along the way, we hear tales about early student radio practitioners at places like Haverford College, Union College, Harvard University, and Columbia University. Jennifer also asks for listeners to share details that they may have about very early college radio (1920s and earlier) at other schools.
The post Podcast #334 – College Radio’s Hidden Early History appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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10/17/23 Update! The new low power FM filing window has been delayed and is now opening on December 6, 2023. See the FCC’s 23-984A1.pdf">announcement here.
On our latest episode of Radio Survivor, it’s a very special treat, with all four Radio Survivor hosts at the mic discussing an exciting low power FM opportunity. Another low power FM licensing window for non-commercial radio stations in the United States opens on November 1, 2023 December 6, 2023. Who is eligible to apply for these licenses? And why should they? And what help is available? Our guest, Sharon Scott, joins us to talk us through all things LPFM. Scott is the co-founder and general manager of a low power FM radio station, WXOX-LP in Louisville, Kentucky. She is also the author of Low Power FM for Dummies, which is set to be released in October, 2023.
The post Podcast #333 – Low Power FM for Dummies appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Jennifer, our intrepid radio station tour guide, leads us through some of her recent visits to college radio stations in New York and Rhode Island. This most recent academic year (2022-23) was an active one, with college campuses and radio stations coming back to life as pandemic restrictions have eased. We also discuss a long-running college radio program that just turned 50 years old. We are curious if listeners know of other programs of a similar vintage. We close the show with a discussion of the 20th anniversary of podcasting.
The post Podcast #332 – More College Radio Tours & Podcasting Turns 20 appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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It’s been nearly three years since the FCC first announced that a new low-power FM (LPFM) application window would be forthcoming. Now we know that November 1 – 8, 2023 will be the third-ever opportunity for qualified non-profits to apply for a license. Jennifer, Eric and Paul review all the pertinent details, explaining why there is excitement around LPFM and this next chance for new community and college radio stations to go on the air.
We also take another look at Franken FMs – vestigial low-power TV (LPTV) stations on channel 6 that can be heard at the far left end of the FM radio dial. They were supposed to go off the air a year ago when the last LPTV stations converted to digital broadcasts. But the FCC eventually granted 13 of them “Special Temporary Authority” to continue broadcasting an analog radio signal experimentally even while their video signals went digital. At its July meeting the Commission plans to vote on rules that would allow these Franken FMs to live on, and we discuss what’s at stake.
The post Podcast #331 – New Low-Power FM Opportunity Coming this November appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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The Radio Survivors return with a new podcast episode! On this edition of the show, we discuss soundscapes and the concept of slow radio. Our guests, artists Brady Marks and Mark Timmings are the creators and producers of the 7th annual Wetland Project slow radio broadcast, taking place on Earth Day on April 22, 2023. This 24-hour broadcast is comprised of audio recordings made at the ṮEḴTEḴSEN wetland in W̱ SÁNEĆ territory (Saturna Island, BC) and is available for airing on interested radio stations (email info AT wetlandproject DOT com).
Brady Marks is a digital media artist working primarily in audiovisual practices, new media and kinetic art. She is also a member of the Soundscape Collective at Vancouver Co-operative Radio and a frequent host of Soundscape on Co-op Radio. Mark Timmings is a multidisciplinary artist who explores perceptions of place by appropriating data and enfolding them into the domain of art.
The post Podcast #330: Wetland Project and Slow Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
The Radio Survivors return with a new podcast episode! Jennifer reports on her visits to four college radio stations in New York state in November, 2022. Part of a longtime project to document radio station field trips, these recent tours are her first since 2019. As COVID-19 restrictions have loosened, stations are largely back to normal operations, with many on an upswing, with more active participants. Jennifer also shares some radio history tidbits, as each of the stations that she visited has fascinating back stories. At Union College, students began broadcasting music over amateur radio in 1920. A trip to the Union College archives was like a dream for our resident college radio historian.
The post Podcast #329: New York College Radio Tours appeared first on Radio Survivor.
The Radio Survivors return with a new episode! For this edition, recorded in July, 2022, our guest is Lori Emerson, Founding Director of the Media Archaeology Lab (the MAL). She’s also an Associate Professor in the English Department and Director of the Intermedia Arts, Writing, and Performance Program at University of Colorado at Boulder.
Lori joins us to chat about her current research into “other networks” and her work at the Media Archaeology Lab, which she started in 2009. Full of media from the past (computers, phones, radios, recording devices, books and more), the MAL “is a place for cross-disciplinary, experimental research, teaching, and creative practice using one of the largest collections in the world of still functioning media.” In our discussion, we also explore technology history, talk about Lori’s recent broadcasting experiments, and learn about the ways that experimental poetry is connected with vintage computers.
The post Podcast #328: Media Archaeology and Other Networks appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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On this week’s program, we turn our attention to the history of industrial music – not the noisy music genre – but music played in industrial settings for workers. A variety of services offered (and still offer) background music for workplaces. Muzak and the RCA Plant Broadcasting System are just a few of the products that were sold to companies in the hopes of increasing morale and/or efficiency. Our guest, Alix Hui is associate professor of History at Mississippi State University and has been studying the history of industrial music systems, as well as background music generally.
The post Podcast #327: Industrial Music Systems and Workplace Broadcasts appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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The annual Infinite Dial survey from Edison Research was recently released, showing what people in the US are listening to, and where. It even includes social media platforms like TikTok, which Eric observes young people often use like radio, playing in the background as they go about daily activities. We review the stats, and also get into the FCC’s latest count of radio stations. Spoiler alert: there are more than ever.
Jennifer shares her recent visit to the Pyrite Radio art installation, featuring radios using fool’s gold as their crystal.
The post Podcast #326: The State of Listening and Broadcast Radio in 2022 appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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The Radio Survivors return to their microphones to review what’s new in radio. Of course, the Russian invasion of Ukraine hangs heavy over our heads, and we review how the international community is leveraging radio to delivery needed communications and information to Ukrainians, as well as how radio is attempting to serve the Ukrainian diaspora. Unfortunately, independent voices inside Russia are also being repressed.
March is Women’s History Month, and the 8th is International Women’s Day. Jennifer participated in a special panel on “Gender Dynamics and Industry Barriers in Podcasting, Broadcasting, and Beyond,” airing on affiliate station XRAY.fm in Portland, Oregon.
We also touch on the Franken FMs that refuse to die, the anticipated LPFM application window, and SPIN magazine’s coverage of ICE FM at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station.
The post Podcast #325 – Ukraine Radio, Int’l Women’s Day and Franken FMs appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Your host Eric Klein has dug deep into some personal radio archives to produce this week’s episode.
The post Podcast #324 – Heartfelt XMAS Filler appeared first on Radio Survivor.
As the year and semester draws to a close, we get real on this week’s episode and talk about work, burnout, volunteer labor, and how podcasting is not immune to the everyday stressors and challenges that we are all feeling right about now! Two of our favorite scholars, Jennifer Lynn Stoever and Hannah McGregor, join us to lend their perspectives on the work of podcasting and sound studies. We touch on the often-under acknowledged labor behind this work, discuss ways to create personal boundaries around work expectations, and learn about the concept of “hope labor.” Jennifer Lynn Stoever is an Associate Professor of English at Binghamton University, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog, and the author of The Sonic Color Line. Hannah McGregor is Assistant Professor of Publishing at Simon Fraser University as well as co-director of the Amplify Podcast Network and co-creator of Witch, Please, a feminist podcast on the world of Harry Potter.
The post Podcast #323 – Hope Labor, Burnout, and Balance: Getting Real about Podcasting appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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On the show this week, we explore one of our favorite topics: college radio history. Our guest, Andreas Preuss, just completed a multi-faceted project about student radio station WRAS at Georgia State University in Atlanta for his master’s thesis: Left of the Dial: Right on the Music: 50 Years of Georgia State FM Radio. We dig into various aspects of the station’s past, as well as Preuss’ interesting path to this project, having worked in college radio in the past as well as in commercial media for decades.
The post Podcast #322 – College Radio History at WRAS appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Few topics create as much anxiety at college and community radio stations – not to mention many a commercial radio morning show – than broadcast indecency. Since the dawn of broadcast regulation in the US there have been legal restrictions on the kind of speech that may be broadcast on the public airwaves, with a particular focus on the topics of sexual and excretory functions. Yet, for all the worrying and fretting, for much of history there hasn’t been much action by the FCC. And even when there were more fines and actions, the actual number was still relatively small.
Prof. Christopher Terry from the University of Minnesota joins us to help unravel this history and set the record straight. First we have to define what “indecency” is, because the specific definition used for broadcast enforcement is not necessarily aligned with the common sense definition, nor is it the same as “obscenity,” which has it’s own particular legal definition. Just because some might call a word “obscene” doesn’t mean it necessarily is legally obscene (in fact, it probably isn’t), nor is it necessarily legally indecent (thought it might be).
Then Prof. Terry walks us through a long uneventful period that ends in the 1970s with the very first indecency fine and the Supreme Court decision Pacifica v. FCC, which kicked off a forty year period of increased enforcement and many more fines. Yet, in those four decades, the standard of indecent shifted both due to political pressures and court intervention. It leads up to 2018, when broadcast new organizations struggled with how to report on President Trump referring to some nations as “s**thole countries,” while still remaining compliant.
In the end, in 2021, it’s still the case that airing “indecent” programming between 6 AM and 10 PM may get you an FCC fine, but the risks are different than what you may have thought to be true one, two or three decades ago.
Featured image credit: Paulette Vautour on Unsplash
The post Podcast #321 – The Long Sordid History of Broadcast Indecency Enforcement appeared first on Radio Survivor.
On this week’s show, we return to the topic of hip-hop on the radio. While on Radio Survivor, we typically focus on non-commercial radio, like college and community stations; in this episode we look at why certain types of commercial radio stations were important to the growth in popularity of hip-hop music. Our guest, Amy Coddington, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at Amherst College and is writing a book about the history of hip-hop on commercial radio.
The post Podcast # 320 – How Hip-Hop Made it to Top 40 Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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The Fairness Doctrine – a Federal Communications Commission rule that’s been out of commission since the 20th century – just doesn’t seem to die, at least in the minds of politicians, the press and much of the public. Politicos of many political stripes trot out its specter as a bogeyman any time its convenient, while efforts to regulate online speech draw inevitable comparisons.
According to Prof. Christopher Terry from the University of Minnesota, that’s because people fundamentally misunderstand what the Fairness Doctrine was, why it existed, and what it did. Often assumed to be a mandate for “equal time” for opposing positions, it was both more nuanced and less prescriptive. Moreover, the FCC’s interpretation and enforcement evolved over the years, from its first formulation in 1949, until its death in the 1980s.
Prof. Terry is here to set the record straight, explaining the rationale, history and actual life of the Fairness Doctrine. He also details why it was, and would be, a poor tool to grapple with the perceived imbalance of partisan national media, and why he thinks its zombie should finally be laid to rest.
Photo by Nathan Wright on Unsplash
The post Podcast #318: Battling the Zombie of the Fairness Doctrine appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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A year-and-a-half ago high school, college and community radio stations shut their studio doors in response to safety measures to prevent the spread of COVID. They quickly scrambled to find ways to stay on air, broadcasting archived programming, allowing DJs to pre-record or even broadcast live from home. We’ve dedicated several episodes to learning how different kinds of stations in a variety of regions confronted the emergency.
Whatever methods were employed, today – with the pandemic still ongoing – it’s heartening to listen around and note that most stations seem to have survived this period. There’s no sense that more stations closed down than in any other 18-month period. In fact, on October 1, college stations from around the world will join together in celebrating the 11th annual College Radio Day, featuring Ambassador “Weird” Al Yankovic.
We take this opportunity to survey radio’s remarkable survival story. Just as internet technology, like Zoom calls, revolutionized the ability to move work, school and other activities into the home, it also let stations stay connected with programmers and volunteers in a way that would have been significantly more challenging even just a decade earlier. Of course, we’re not arguing this is a net plus – too many lives have been lost or altered forever due to this disease. As well, working or DJing from home isn’t a boon for everyone, on top of the fact that closed studios severely impacts the collaboration and camaraderie that is at the heart of so many stations. Yet, it’s worth reflecting on why and how grassroots radio withstood this unprecedented challenge, continuing to serve listeners and communities and help them through this crisis.
The post Podcast #317 – How Radio Survived 18 Months of Pandemic (and Keeps Going) appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Musician, DJ and radio artist Don Joyce passed away nearly six years ago, leaving behind a voluminous archive of his unparalelled collage radio program “Over the Edge.” The documentary “How Radio Isn’t Done” sheds light on this member of Negativland, his life and his work in recontextualizing the never-ending flow of media messages that flood everyday life.
Director Ryan Worsley joins to talk about Joyce, his hyper-focused artistic process and what she learned creating this affectionate and honest portrait of an iconoclastic figure and broadcasting legend.
The post Podcast #316 – How Radio Isn’t Done, According To Negativland’s Don Joyce appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Mitch Jeserich has been working as a host, producer and reporter for Pacifica Radio and KPFA for two decades.
His career in radio was just getting started as a volunteer when 9-11-2001 changed everything.
Host Eric Klein and guest Mitch Jeserich are friends and former co-workers at Free Speech Radio News in 2003, where Mitch was covering the capital in Washington D.C. and Eric was working on the tech-team in Berkeley.
Letters and Politics on Youtube
FSRN’s website: Free Speech Radio News
FSRN via the wayback machine
The post Podcast #315 – Mitch Jeserich appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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On the show this week we explore a pivotal period for radio news in the 1930s and learn why the Lindbergh kidnapping changed everything. Travel back in time with us. It’s March 1932 and a horrible crime has just occurred, the kidnapping of the 20-month-old son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Imagine that you were living in the United States in 1932 and wanted to follow breaking news about this story. If it were 2021, the answer might be Twitter or the internet. But in the early 1930s, it was obviously a very different media landscape, largely consisting of print journalism, news reels, and radio. Our guest, Thomas Doherty joins us to provide historical context and shed light on radio’s role in the media frenzy surrounding the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby and subsequent trial and why it was a turning point for how breaking news was covered. Thomas Doherty, Professor of American Studies at Brandeis, is the author of Little Lindy is Kidnapped: How the Media Covered the Crime of the Century.
The post Podcast #314 – Radio and the Lindbergh Kidnapping appeared first on Radio Survivor.
On this week’s show, we revisit a topic that is near and dear to us, the preservation of sound. This time around the emphasis is on podcasts. Our guest Jeremy Morris is the founder of PodcastRE (which is short for Podcast Research), a searchable, researchable archive of podcasting culture. Morris is Associate Professor, Media and Cultural Studies in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and that’s where PodcastRE was launched. We dig into the functionality of PodcastRE and talk about some of the reasons why scholars are interested in researching podcasts.
The post Podcast #313 – PodcastRE’s Archive of Podcasting Culture appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Portrayals of radio in popular culture provide an interesting glimpse at radio’s role in society. At Radio Survivor, we’ve long been fascinated by radio depictions on both the small and large screen; so it is a treat to dive into this topic with Hemrani Vyas, Programming Coordinator at Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Vyas curated an entire day of radio-themed films for the cable network, focusing on the era of 1930 to 1950. This week we talk about some of the featured films and also dig into a broader discussion about the changing images of radio in the movies.
This episode originally aired in May of 2020. To hear the longer, original version click here.
The post Podcast #311 – Classic Films about Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Today on the show we rebroadcast one of our favorite episodes from one year ago, which was described this way:
On August 27, 2020, nomadic online radio station Radioee.net is presenting a live, translingual 24-hour broadcast, Wireless, featuring 24 radio stations from all over the world. Taking place on the 100th anniversary of the first radio broadcast in Argentina and the first mass public entertainment broadcast in the world; Wireless launches at midnight Buenos Aires time on August 27, 2020. This date is significant, as it recognizes the inaugural Argentinian broadcast from Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires on the same day back in 1920, which used smuggled Marconi equipment to present a Wagner opera.
Radioee.net founders Stephanie Sherman, Agustina Woodgate and Hernan Woodgate join us on the show to share their plans for this fascinating broadcast featuring radio stations in Buenos Aires, Wuhan, Nigeria, Cuba, Uruguay, New York, and more. On the episode they talk about some of the topics that will be touched upon, from paratelepathy to radio history to acrobatics.
The audio available on this page is roughly the “radio edit” from one year ago. To hear the longer version (also known as the podcast edit) visit the original page: https://www.radiosurvivor.com/2020/08/podcast-259-radioee-net-celebrates-100-year-history-of-wireless-communication/
Show Notes:
The post Podcast #310 – Radioee.net Celebrates 100 Year History of Wireless Communication (now 101 years) appeared first on Radio Survivor.
What do home made short wave radios, flexi discs, and cyanotype photography have in common? Kirk Pearson is a composer and founder of Dogbotic, a full service music and sound studio, a radical multimedia arts workshop, and open source creative technology lab. Kirk joins us today to share the planning and thinking behind their next community workshop, Ear Re-Training, Media Manipulation for the Musical Mind.
Show Notes:
Some of the episodes of Radio Survivor referenced today:
The post Podcast #309 – Ear Retraining with Dogbotic appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Shortly after its 26th birthday, we revisit this interview celebrating a quarter-century of the MP3.
On July 14, 1995 the file extension .MP3 was chosen and set in place for an audio format that would go on to change music. Artist, scholar and curator John Kannenberg marks the 25th anniversary of this event with an online exhibit, “MP3 @ 25: The Anniversary Exhibition” at his Museum of Portable Sound.
John joins this episode to explain why it’s important to observe this anniversary, and to recount some of the milestones in MP3’s history. From the somewhat apocryphal story of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” as the first MP3, to the introduction of the iPod, he helps us understand the role of MP3 in delivering us into the fully digital music universe we now inhabit.
We also dive into his singular museum, which exists on a single iPhone 4s, with a printed catalog to guide the visitor. Because of COVID-19 John is now available to provide guided online tours of the many sound artifacts that Museum of Portable Sound has in its archives. Either way, it’s about experiencing sound directly and purely, without distraction. (And we are here for the love of Radio and Sound.)
The post Podcast #308 – Marking a Quarter-Century of MP3 (Replay) appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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On this week’s show, we take a trip back in time to look at radio in the 1940s and 1950s. During this post-war period, women’s roles were shifting in the workplace and in popular media. Television arrived on the scene, bringing with it some, but not all, of the programming that people knew and loved from radio. Battles were also brewing over radio content, including violence, sex, and portrayals of family life. Our guest, scholar Catherine Martin, has been poring over FCC complaint letters from this period and explains what all the fuss was about. She is Visiting Assistant Professor in Media Studies in Denison University’s Department of Communication.
Image Credit: Stockton Helffrich, “Memo from Stockton Helffrich to John Cleary,” February 2, 1955, Folder 112; Box 349; National Broadcasting Company Records, 1921-1976, Wisconsin Historical Society.
The post Podcast #307 – Battling over Violence, Sex and Women’s Roles on Postwar Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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What are the odds that a popular television series would feature your college radio station as a backdrop for two episodes? That’s exactly what Jennifer found, when HBO’s “Mare of Easttown” employed a set that accurately recreates Haverford College’s station as a location for the limited-run drama. Jennifer talked with the show’s production designer to get the behind-the-scenes scoop.
Paul recently experienced his own radio coincidence when he by chance discovered a storefront radio museum in the small Oregon city of Sutherlin. Although it was closed, the proprietor of the Radio Days Museum saw him outside and invited him in for a quick tour of the radio memorabilia collection. Paul also shares an orchestrated soundwalk he enjoyed down the road in Jacksonville, Oregon.
The post Podcast #306 – Radio Coincidences, from Easttown to Sutherlin appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Border radio is one of our favorite topics at Radio Survivor and on this week’s episode we dig into the history of radio broadcasting on the northern border of Mexico. Scholar Sonia Robles shares the stories of some of the lesser-known, small broadcasters whose histories are often overshadowed by the wild tales of higher power border blaster stations. Robles is the author of Mexican Waves: Radio Broadcasting along Mexico’s Northern Border, 1930-1950 and Assistant Professor of History at University of Delaware. This episode was originally broadcast in August, 2020. To hear the original, longer version click here.
The post Podcast #305 – Radio History on the Northern Border of Mexico appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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As we wrap up Pride Month, our podcast discussion turns to queer spaces and queer community on the radio and in podcasting, specifically lesbian broadcasters in Canada. Our guest, Stacey Copeland is a media producer and Ph.D. candidate at Simon Fraser University’s School of Communication in Vancouver, Canada. Stacey has been researching the history of lesbian radio shows, including The Lesbian Show and Dykes on Mics. Community radio played an important role in welcoming gay and lesbian programming, with shows airing on stations like Vancouver Co-op Radio and campus-community radio station CKUT. Bringing the conversation to 2021, we also talk about connections between these early shows and current-day queer podcasts.
Image Credit: Graphic for The Lesbian Show in Vancouver Gay Community Centre Newspaper from City of Vancouver Archives AM1675-S1-F1433
The post Podcast #304 – Lesbian Radio History in Canada appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Just when we thought the Franken FM era might be over for good, the FCC grants “Special Temporary Authority” to a LPTV channel 6 in San Jose, California to keep its analog signal – heard on the FM dial – on the air while transitioning its video signal to digital. We review this news, along with a proposal in front of the FCC to boost low-power FM stations to 250 watts.
We also take a look at the most recent issue of The Wire magazine, dedicated to radio in both broadcast and internet forms. Dedicated to “Adventures in Sound and Music,” the journal looks at stations that share experimental and forward-looking sounds, highlighting Radio Survivor favorites like Wave Farm and the Pirate Radio Sound Map, alongside community-oriented stations in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, South Africa and Palestine.
Then Jennifer shares her experience taking the cassette-hacking course that Eric discussed in episode #299, as we analyze the intermixing of radio, physical and digital media in the 21st century.
The post Podcast #303 – Radio on TV, Magazines and Tape appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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This week, we take a close look at the history of an influential Spanish language community radio station: KDNA. Located in Washington State, the station launched in 1979 and serves a rural community which includes farm workers and immigrants. Our guest, Monica De La Torre, is Assistant Professor at the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University and is the author of a forthcoming book about KDNA called Feminista Frequencies: Community Building through Radio in the Yakima Valley.
Related Episodes:
The post Podcast #302 – Feminista Frequencies appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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From 1961 to 1976 WRVR-FM broadcast a progressive slate of social justice and jazz programming from the Riverside Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Beginning in 2018 those archives are being digitized and transcribed by the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, and on June 17 they’re asking volunteers to help correct those transcriptions in a “Transcript-A-Thon” event.
We welcome guests Vincent Kelley, Archivist at The Riverside Church Archives, and Ryn Marchese, Engagement and Use Manager for the American Archives of Public Broadcasting, to dig into the history of WRVR and its deep archive of truly historical audio. IN 1964 it was the first radio station to win a Peabody for its entire programming, which included coverage of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama. Among the famous figures who appeared on air are Pete Seeger, Malcolm X, Bob Dylan, Indira Gandhi, Aldous Huxley and Margaret Mead, while Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his pivotal “Beyond Vietnam” speech at the Riverside Church over WRVR-FM on April 4, 1967.
The post Podcast #301 – Digitizing & Transcribing the Archives of NYC Progressive Church Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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The Federal Communications Commission recently announced that November 2, 2021 will mark the opening of the next licensing window for full-power non-commercial / educational (NCE) FM radio stations. The Commission first hinted at this chance back in fall of 2020. Given how often our listeners ask how and when they can get a radio license, we immediately dedicated an episode to that topic. Now that more is known we decided to revisit it.
Even though the application window dates have not yet been announced, now is the time to get prepared. Broadcast attorney Frank Montero guests to help us understand the process of applying for an FM broadcast license. He’s a partner with Fletcher, Heald and Hildreth, which also publishes the CommLawBlog. He explains who qualifies to apply and other requirements to keep in mind.
License application windows are the only time when an organization may apply for an FM radio license, and they don’t happen frequently. The last full-power NCE window was more than a decade ago, and the last chance at an LPFM was 2013. As the FM dial fills up in cities and towns across the country, this may be the last opportunity for a new station in many regions. If you’re interested in operating a full- or low-power non-commercial station we we hope this episode helps get you started. Even if you’re not interested, it’s important to understand just how stations get on the air in the 21st century.
Feature image adapted from “The FCC’s front door” by Rob Pegararo / flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The post Podcast #300 – How to Get a Noncomm FM License in 2021 (Replay) appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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It seems like physical media continues to have a hold on humans, even while most of us in the West engage with online, streaming and virtual media for much, if not most, of our time. Audiocassettes are like radio, in that they have been declared dead multiple times in the last three decades, yet continue to be found, employed and enjoyed by new generations who insist on keeping them alive. Eric just completed a weekend-long cassette hacking workshop, joined by a diverse group of musicians and sound-makers of a variety of ages. He shares that experience as we discuss conjoined histories of cassettes and radio.
That leads us into a presentation Jennifer watched at this year’s virtual Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, where she learned about a pre-VCR underground of people who recorded the audio of television shows onto cassette. It turns out some of these recordings may be the only surviving artifacts of some broadcasts that were not preserved, or have never again been seen or heard in their original form. We show how cassettes are for everyone who cares about sound in its myriad forms.
Also under discussion: the shutdown of internet radio directory service Reciva, and the perilousness of proprietary platforms.
The post Podcast #299 – Cassettes for Art, Radio and Recording TV appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Colleges and high schools are finishing up their first – and, with hope, last – full academic COVID year, and all indicators are that student radio remained on the air, as students adjusted to online classes and socially distant campuses. Jennifer Waits reports back from the Intercollegiate Broadcast System annual conference, held virtually this year, where she gauged the temperature of student broadcasters and the radio professionals who shared their advice with conference attendees. She and Paul Riismandel discuss what the long-term implications of virtual and hybrid broadcasting may have for college and community radio, taking into account that the accessibility that remote technology offers is weighed against the benefits of face-to-face interaction.
Paul shares some highlights from the 2021 Infinite Dial survey from Edison Research, delivering stats on what audio Americans are using in the car, and the growth of podcast listening. He also reminds us about the upcoming non-commercial radio license opportunity, which now has a firm date in November. Jennifer and Paul then finish things out with a look at Franken FMs, which are scheduled to leave the airwaves in July, when the FCC will require all remaining analog low-power TV stations to convert to digital.
The post Podcast #298 – College Radio at the end of the Academic COVID Year appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Renowned radio scholar Michele Hilmes is Professor Emerita, Media and Cultural Studies in the Department of Communication Arts at University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been a long time proponent of the importance of studying radio and sound, which have often been neglected in the broader field of media studies. She joins us on the show to discuss radio studies, her call for new terminology surrounding audio works, and the growing interest in sound studies.
The post Podcast #297 – Radio Studies and Soundwork appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Amanda Dawn Christie is an artist enamored with radios and radio waves. The Assistant Professor, Studio Arts at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada) joins us on the show to discuss her most recent transmission art project, Ghosts in the Airglow, in which she created work at the HAARP facility in Alaska.
Christie also shares with us the backstory of how she starting working with radio and radio waves, describing her fascination with radio towers and shortwave and recounting her numerous radio-related art projects.
This episode first aired in April of 2019. To hear the longer verson click here.
Show Notes:
The post Podcast #296: Radio Spectrum and Transmission Art – rebroadcast appeared first on Radio Survivor.
This week, we are joined by the hosts of the podcast Rice and Shine. Led by four Seattle-area teenagers, the chat-style program provides a glimpse into the lives of 9th graders beginning high school from a distance during a pandemic. Rice and Shine is an incredible time capsule of the current school year, as hosts Lauren, Sophie, Ava and Grace talk pop culture, discuss the challenges of remote learning, address anti-Asian American violence during the COVID-19 outbreak, and share their experiences as Asian-American girls. They launched the podcast in 2020 as part of their participation at high school radio station KMIH-FM.
The post Podcast #295 – High School Podcasting with the Hosts of Rice and Shine appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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The PIRATE Act was signed into law more than a year ago, but the rules governing increased fines for unlicensed broadcasting are about to go into effect on April 26. The Act is intended to give the FCC additional tools for tamping down pirate radio activity in hot beds like Boston and Brooklyn, NY, but there are reasons to be skeptical.
Brooklyn-based writer, post-production mixer and field recordist David Goren joins to help us tease out the real-world implications. Goren is also the creator of the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map and has been monitoring and recording unlicensed radio activity in the borough for decades.
Also joining the show is Dr. Christopher Terry from the University of Minnesota. A professor of media law, he helps illuminate some of the legal and bureaucratic elements that complicate the Commission’s efforts. He also catches us up on the latest development in the battle over media ownership rules, with the Supreme Court issuing a narrow unanimous ruling in favor of the FCC’s most recent changes, but not quite addressing the decades-long gridlock in that policy area.
The post Podcast #294 – Reading the PIRATE Act / FCC & the Supremes Pt. 2 appeared first on Radio Survivor.
What is radio art? What is transmission art? We discuss the experimental side of radio and artistic uses of radio transmissions on our show this week, looking at historical and contemporary examples. Artist and scholar Anna Friz joins us to chat about these concepts, sharing how her college/community radio past in Canada inspired her to immerse herself in the practice of sound art and radio art. Friz is Assistant Professor, Film and Digital Media at University of California, Santa Cruz and also serves on the board of Wave Farm.
Related Episodes about sound art, transmission art, women in sound:
The podcast began with a discussion of this recent piece of sound collage https://youtu.be/hhirSscNuuc
The post Podcast #293 – Exploring Radio Art and Transmission Art appeared first on Radio Survivor.
What is sound art? And what do we know about its origin story? We explore this question and more with our guest this week, artist and educator Judy Dunaway. An adjunct professor in the History of Art Department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Dunaway’s recent article, “The Forgotten 1979 MoMA Sound Art Exhibition,” is a fascinating look at the history of sound art and highlights important contributions by female artists. In our wide-ranging discussion, we also hear about Dunaway’s own artistic practice, from her work with latex balloons to transmission art to a “phone improv” show over BlogTalkRadio a decade ago.
Related Episodes about sound art, transmission art, women in sound:
The post Podcast #292 – The History of Sound Art appeared first on Radio Survivor.
A super hero comic is at the heart of The New Adventures of Super Indian, a forthcoming audio drama from Native Voices at the Autry. Our guests on the show include Super Indian’s creator, playwright and director, Arigon Starr (an enrolled member of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma) and artistic director DeLanna Studi (an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation). Super Indian actually began as a radio serial in 2006 and was transformed into a full-blown comic by 2012. As Native Voices at the Autry looked to its next production during the pandemic, it jumped at the chance to do another audio version of Super Indian. Although theater is quite different in a remote context, the folks behind Super Indian are also relishing the fact that an online audio serial will be accessible to audience members from all over the world. The New Adventures of Super Indian is a 4-part serial. The first episode premieres on April 14, 2021, with subsequent episodes debuting once a week.
The post Podcast #291 – The New Adventures of Super Indian appeared first on Radio Survivor.
One of the biggest celebrities in Los Angeles in the early part of the 20th century was Aimee Semple McPherson. She inspired scandalous headlines and fictional depictions, including the character Sister Molly on the Showtime series, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels and Sister Alice McKeegan on the 2020 HBO reboot of Perry Mason. Yet the story that is less frequently told is McPherson’s embrace of radio. She built her own powerful station, KFSG, in Los Angeles in the 1920s, which operated from the grand Angelus Temple, where her Foursquare Church was headquartered.
On this episode, scholar Tona Hangen joins us to shed more light into the radio work of Aimee Semple McPherson and to also provide some context about the early days of Christian radio evangelists in the United States. Hangen is the author of Redeeming the Dial: Radio, Religion and Popular Culture in America and is Professor of History at Worcester State University.
Show Notes:
The post Podcast #290 – Aimee Semple McPherson and the Early History of Radio Evangelists appeared first on Radio Survivor.
In honor of Women’s History Month, this week’s episode focuses on women in sound. Our guests, Jennifer Hyland Wang and Jenny Stoever, return to the show to discuss sound studies, the cultural politics of listening, the history of women’s voices on the airwaves and on podcasts, as well as broader issues of representation.
Jennifer Hyland Wang is an Adjunct Professor at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Jenny Stoever is Associate Professor of English at Binghamton University and Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog.
The post Podcast #289 – Celebrating Women in Sound appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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This week we share more evidence of how broadest radio is an important informational lifeline and human connection for so many people. As most of the country enters year two of the pandemic, we catch up again with Becky Meiers, General Manager of community radio station KCAW-FM in Sitka, Alaska. We last spoke with Becky at the end of March 2020, before any cases of COVID-19 had been diagnosed in this remote community, though she shared the station’s preparedness plan.
KCAW serves a vital communications role in Southeastern Alaska where small communities are spread out without overland connections, and the only travel is by air or by sea. Becky tells us how the station has gotten through the last year, bringing local broadcasters back to the air as possible, while also growing its local news coverage. Becky also regales us with stories from her journeys to isolated “translator communities” where local repeater transmitters (a/k/a “translators”) required emergency repairs and maintenance.
Show Notes:
The post Podcast #288 – Eagle vs. Transmitter appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Jennifer, Eric and Paul join together to review what’s news as we kick off the month of March. Top of the list is an upcoming FCC radio license auction. Originally planned for April 2020, but delayed by the first coronavirus lockdowns, the auction will see 140 commercial radio construction permits up for bid. We discuss if this is a good opportunity for community organizations hoping to broadcast, and things to keep in mind when applying.
A new Nielsen report shows that the podcast audience has grown more diverse than the US population as a whole, and Jennifer alerts us to a fascinating new podcast the dives into the audio diaries of former first-lady Ladybird Johnson. Then we dig into one of the biggest controversies in podcasting right now, the “Reply All” mini-series on the racist workplace culture at “Bon Appetit” magazine, that brought a spotlight on the racial inequities in the podcast’s own corporate home. Rather than picking apart the details, we analyze how simply being a new medium open to fresh ideas and voices isn’t enough to escape the racial and gender biases that are still pervasive in media organizations and the culture at large.
Feature image credit: Wikimedia Commons – CKUA Radio Tower on campus / Public Domain
The post Podcast #287 – New Station Opportunity, Women’s History Month, and more appeared first on Radio Survivor.
On this week’s show we take a look at the ways that Native Americans used sound technology during radio’s earliest days and how that inspired and led to the flourishing Native media landscape, including tribal radio stations. Our guest, Josh Garrett-Davis, is Associate Curator at the Autry Museum and author of a recently completed dissertation: Resounding Voices: Native Americans and Sound Media, 1890-1970.
The post Podcast #286 – Native American Voices on the Air in the Early Days of Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Nathan Moore is the General Manager at WTJU and the Staff Advisor of WXTJ at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He is also the current President of the Board of the NFCB, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.
We invited Nathan Moore onto the show to ask about running community and college radio stations at the start of the second year of the Pandemic. We talk about remote live broadcasting, training and recruiting new volunteers, and strengthening the mission of community and student media and the arts.
Show Notes:
The post Podcast #285 – Running a Big Community Media Organization in the 2nd Year of the Pandemic appeared first on Radio Survivor.
On this week’s show we learn about SpokenWeb, a Canadian project focused on the preservation of literary sound recordings. Partly inspired by the energetic poetry scene of the 1960s, SpokenWeb works to preserve recordings of these live events and also describe and share this material. Our guest, Hannah McGregor, leads the SpokenWeb Podcast Task Force and hosts the SpokenWeb podcast. She shares not only the back story about SpokenWeb, but also the breadth of material featured on its monthly podcast.
The post Podcast #284 – SpokenWeb and Literary Sound appeared first on Radio Survivor.
On Radio Survivor we are interested in not only audio, but also its history as well as preservation efforts. Along those lines, we have done numerous episodes about archives. We additionally have a strong passion for student-produced media, like high school and college radio. On this episode, we discuss an interesting intersection of the two, as we focus on archives and student activism. Our guest, Lae’l Hughes-Watkins, is the founder of Project STAND (Student Activism Now Documented) and is also University Archivist at University of Maryland. She explains to us the importance of archiving student activism, past and present, as well as the complexities and ethical considerations when doing this work.
Photo of Foothill College Archives by Jennifer Waits
The post Podcast #283 – Project STAND is Archiving Student Activism appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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What a difference a week makes. President Biden has appointed Jessica Rosenworcel as acting chair of the Federal Communications Commission, only the second time a woman has held the post. This signals the beginning of a new agenda at the Commission – though currently evenly split down party lines – and Prof. Christopher Terry from the University of Minnesota is here to help us read the tea leaves.
But that doesn’t mean the legacy of the old FCC is gone yet. Just one day before the inauguration, the agency was in front of the Supreme Court petitioning to get out of its nearly-two-decade Groundhog’s Day of repeatedly failing to properly revisit and revise media ownership rules. Although many press reports concluded that the justices were more sympathetic to the FCC’s arguments, Prof. Terry isn’t so sure, and tells us why. He also itemized some other important issues – like Network Neutrality – that the Commission will likely have to deal with in the coming year.
The post Podcast #282 – New FCC, Who Dis? appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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There are a few stories we were watching closely at the end of 2020, and we wanted to bring listeners up to date. First up is Section 230, the law that provides a degree of immunity to online platforms – from social media to community radio stations – for consequences resulting from what their users might post or share on their platforms. Trump had urged its repeal, apparently to get back at big tech companies like Twitter, and installed a new FCC commissioner in December who is very supportive of the FCC taking over administration of the statute, regulating online speech. That put eyes on the FCC’s January meeting. We’ll tell you what happened.
We’ve also been tracking controversies at the Voice of America, where a political appointee has been pressuring staff to avoid news coverage critical of the US. The situation recently came to another head. Then our reflection on VOA’s mission spurs Paul to share the story of when his grandmother was a broadcaster for the service.
We also spend some time learning about Jennifer’s new podcast project, and discuss the evolution of podcast formats since the early days of the medium.
The post Podcast #281 – Wrapping Up Section 230 & the VOA appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Radio history is close to our hearts at Radio Survivor and on this week’s episode we explore the story of student radio in Australia. Our guest, Rafal Alumairy, is working on book about this little-told history. She shares with us details not only about the timeline of student radio in Australia, but also some intriguing intersections with pirate radio and commercial radio activities.
Thanks to Radio Survivor friend Jose Fritz of Arcane Radio Trivia for alerting us to Rafal’s work!
The post Podcast #280 – Student Radio History in Australia appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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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. This is a re-broadcast of our episode from April, 2018.
The post Podcast #279 – Zach Poff Built a Radio Station Inside a Pond appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Radios in the trees, a transmitter in the pond, and a weather-driven synth. These are just some of what you’ll find on The Wave Farm, a 29-acre property in New York’s Hudson Valley dedicated to radio and transmission arts. It’s anchored by community radio station WGXC, accompanied by a cornucopia of additional tiny terrestrial and internet stations.
Jennifer Waits takes us on an auditory tour of the farm, along with a visit to the station’s Hudson, NY studio, where station manager and managing news editor Lynn Sloneker lays out all these audio feeds. Then in the Wave Farm studio, artistic director Tom Roe details the organization’s history, which has its roots in the unlicensed micropower radio movement of the 1990s.
Every year Wave Farm hosts artists in residence, who create unique works and installations exploring the many aspects of electromagnetic transmission. One was the musical artist Quintron, who created the Weather Warlock, a weather-controlled synthesizer. Eric Klein gave him a call to learn more about this project and his work.
The post Podcast #278 – The Wave Farm Grows Transmission Arts (rebroadcast) appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Even though Trump is leaving the White House on January 19, he’s set up the FCC to carry on his idiosyncratic policy goals well into the Biden administration, especially if a Republican-led Senate resists the new president’s nomination for a new chairman.
At the last minute, Trump decided not to renominate FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly because he dared to opine that the Federal Communications Commission should not be put in charge of regulating online speech – a position consistent with his conservative political views. However, Trump is hellbent on the evisceration of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity to internet platforms of all sizes and type for the speech posted by third-parties, such as participants in an online forum, or a social media platform.
Prof. Christopher Terry, from the University of Minnesota, joins to help us untangle this situation and the implications of the president’s last-minute nomination – and the subsequent Senate confirmation – of Nathan Simington to the FCC. Simington is believed to be one of the authors behind an executive order that calls on the FCC to “clarify” regulations on internet speech. With the exit of Republican Chairman Ajit Pai with the change of administration, this leaves the FCC with a two Democrat to two Republican deadlock. Together we suss out how community media could be affected should Trump and Simington get their way.
We also review arguments in front of the Supreme Court in the case of the FCC’s media ownership regulations that have failed to pass Appeals Court scrutiny for more than a decade.
Show Notes:
Feature image credit: Justin Baeder / flickr (CC BY 2.0)
The post Podcast #277 – How Does the FCC Solve Anything? appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Though there are many good reasons why one might not want to look back at the year that was, we still see some aspects worth noting. In particular, radio and podcasting proved to be resilient media, with broadcasters and podcasters rallying to meet the challenges of quarantines and social distancing brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic. This also brought on renewed interest in legal unlicensed Part 15 radio broadcasting, while the FCC authorized the first-ever terrestrial all-digital radio broadcast service, on the AM dial, no less.
The murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor refocused the nation’s attention on systematic racism and the racial and gender inequality that continues to permeate every aspect of American society. This brought about fresh calls for public and community broadcasters to address the effects of this within their own walls, along with efforts to provide mutual aid, support and guidance to BIPOC and advice to white allies.
An eventful year, it was, and we’re here to run it all down.
The post Podcast #276 – 2020 the Year in Radio and Sound appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Podcasting is increasingly being taken up by people in academia, for myriad reasons. Some professors are looking for ways to share their work, others use it as a research tool, some include it as part of their teaching practice, while others seek to include podcasting as an official part of their scholarly output. We dig into these ideas on this week’s show with our guest Hannah McGregor, Assistant Professor of Publishing at Simon Fraser University and co-director of Amplify Podcast Network. A podcaster herself, she is co-creator of the feminist Harry Poster podcast Witch, Please and also the creator of the podcast Secret Feminist Agenda.
The post Podcast #275: Making Scholarly Podcasts Count appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Poet Kenneth Goldsmith created UbuWeb in 1996 as an online repository for obscure avant-garde art that, by virtue of having little commercial potential, was hard to find. Audio was an early component of the archive, owing to Kenneth’s interest in sound poetry, an even more obscure art form.
Since then he’s served as the chief, and only, curator and proprietor of UbuWeb, which has become an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in underground and unpopular culture. Kenneth chronicled his efforts in the new book “Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb.” He joins this episode to recount some of these tales, telling us what inspired him to build UbuWeb in the first place, and why he maintains it using simple html code of the sort used in the early web, rather than updating to use the latest database and dynamic website platforms.
Because much of the work on UbuWeb is archived without explicit permission from the creators – living or dead – Kenneth explains why he views “cease and desist” orders as an invitation to dialog and how community radio station WFMU was one of his inspirations. We also get into the relationship between piracy and preservation, why he loves “the misuses of UbuWeb” and the value of “folk archiving” and “folk law.”
This interview originally aired in July of 2020, and the longer version is available here: https://www.radiosurvivor.com/2020/07/28/podcast-256-the-robin-hood-of-the-avant-garde/
The post Podcast #274 – UbuWeb is a Hand Coded Archive that Stands the Test of Time appeared first on Radio Survivor.
On this most unusual of Thanksgiving weeks, we are honored to speak with Alice Brock, the woman who provided much inspiration for Arlo Guthrie’s inadvertent Thanksgiving Day radio staple, “Alice’s Restaurant.” Brock shares with us not only some insight into the 18-minute anti-war epic; but also stories about her life and holiday traditions. For 2020, Brock was inspired to create a special introductory message for radio stations to play in advance of “Alice’s Restaurant,” and she explains why she was moved to offer up these words of thanks this year in particular.
The post Podcast #273: Thanksgiving and Radio Traditions with Alice Brock of “Alice’s Restaurant” appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Carl Malamud is credited with having one of the very first streaming internet talk radio shows, “Geek of the Week,” beginning in 1993. And because it was available for download, too, it’s considered a proto-podcast.
Carl joins us this week to dig into this early history of internet radio, recounting how his efforts quickly snowballed from hosting a weekly interview show with internet trailblazers to conducting live broadcasts of the National Press Club luncheons and Congressional hearings.
Prof. Andrew Bottomley of SUNY Oneonta also joins as our special expert co-host to help us place these achievements in historical perspective. Carl tells us he was always more motivated to “do it for real,” rather than write a policy paper, and that he was also driven by a commitment to openness, to ensure public access to information of civic import. Today he continues working for the cause of public information as the founder and president of Public Resource.
This episode originally aired on July 21st 2020. Where a longer version of the interview is available.
The post Podcast #272 – ‘Geek of the Week’ and the Beginning of Internet Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Eric, Jennifer and Paul reconvene to catch up on all that is news to us in the worlds of radio and sound. The FCC just unanimously approved all-digital operation on the AM band, while commercial radio – born on the AM band – celebrates its centennial. But keep in mind that broadcast radio is older than that first commodified broadcast.
We also reflect on the very first virtual Grassroots Radio Conference and the history of radio dealing with earlier epidemics.
The post Podcast #271: AM Radio Goes Digital as It Celebrates a Centennial appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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In the last few years a number of large and prominent public media organizations have been forced to confront the effects of sexism, racism and harassment within their own organizations that has been tolerated for too long. One clear cause is a serious lack of diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the public media system. Public Media for All is a diverse coalition of public media workers, led by people of color, that is organizing to raise awareness of the negative effects of this deficiency and the resulting culture in public media, and sharing solutions for individuals and organizations.
Sway Steward is on the organizing committee for Public Media for All, and joins the show to tell us more. They’re organizing a day of action and education on November 10, providing resources for people of color, white allies and organizational leadership to seek and create accountability and bring about positive change.
The post Podcast #270: Public Media for All appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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The Federal Communications Commission has announced that it will open two filing windows for non-commercial FM radio licenses. First up will be an opportunity to apply for a full-power non-commercial / educational (NCE) license, followed by a low-power FM opportunity.
Even though the application window dates have not yet been announced, now is the time to get prepared. Broadcast attorney Frank Montero guests to help us understand the process of applying for an FM broadcast license. He’s a partner with Fletcher, Heald and Hildreth, which also publishes the CommLawBlog. He explains who qualifies to apply and other requirements to keep in mind.
License application windows are the only time when an organization may apply for an FM radio license, and they don’t happen frequently. The last full-power NCE window was more than a decade ago, and the last chance at an LPFM was 2013. As the FM dial fills up in cities and towns across the country, this may be the last opportunity for a new station in many regions. If you’re interested in operating a full- or low-power non-commercial station we we hope this episode helps get you started. Even if you’re not interested, it’s important to understand just how stations get on the air in the 21st century.
Feature image adapted from “The FCC’s front door” by Rob Pegararo / flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The post Podcast #269 – How To Get an FM Radio License in 2021 appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Over the course of four seasons, the Peabody-nominated podcast “Scene on Radio,” a production of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, has earned a reputation for tackling head-on difficult topics around race, gender, justice and equity. But it didn’t start out that way.
It started life as a documentary anthology that host and producer John Biewen calls a “hodge podge.” Then, for the second season John decided to take on race in America by exploring the history and meaning of whiteness. That season, “Seeing White,” forged a new path for the podcast, proving that there was an audience willing to take a deep dive into challenging topics.
John joins the show this week to talk about “Scene on Radio,” and help us understand why and how a white male radio journalist, such as himself, can and should spearhead critical examinations of whiteness and men – the topic of season three – and a revisionist history of democracy in America, as in the current season, “The Land That Never Has Been.” Though he takes on much of the production work himself, for analysis and guidance he turns to co-hosts like Celeste Headlee (“Men”) and Rutgers professor Chenjerai Kumanyika, alongside the many historians and experts who provide facts and perspective.
Though the podcast is unflinching in challenging accepted and closely-held narratives and beliefs, John notes that he’s received relatively little backlash, and tells us why he thinks that is. He also gives us a peek behind the scenes at how he produces a multi-part documentary podcast, and how he and Chenjerai navigate their signature introductions and wrap-ups that help listeners digest each episode.
This is a rebroadcast which originally aired May 26, 2020.
The post Podcast #268 – Scene on Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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This week, the Radio Survivor crew did its first live broadcast from a virtual conference held over Zoom. As part of the 2020 Grassroots Radio Conference, we presented a live radio show during the event, which aired over host station ARTxFM’s (WXOX-LP) FM signal in Louisville, Kentucky as well as over the internet. The topic of our discussion is community radio and protests.
ARTxFM host and producer Tia Marie and Xray.fm Talk Content Coordinator Miranda Selinger are our guests. The conversation focuses on how each of their respective stations are responding to protests and racial justice actions in their communities during a pandemic. Tia Marie produced WXOX-LP’s “Justice for Breonna” nationwide simulcast in honor of the memory of Louisville resident Breonna Taylor and explains how important it was for their station to acknowledge the black women who have been killed by police. Xray.fm has also been producing more local news from its home in Portland, Oregon, which has been especially active with racial justice protests. Selinger shares the station’s work in developing a daily news show as well as its partnership with local station The Numberz.
The post Podcast #267 – Live from the Grassroots Radio Conference: Community Radio and Protests appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Flirt FM at the National University of Ireland at Galway was one of the first “community of interest” stations to go on the air in that nation. Effectively, this means it was a trailblazing college and community station, hitting the air not long after the state broadcast monopoly began to erode in 1988.
Andrew Ó Baoill founded Flirt FM as an undergraduate student at what was then known as University College Galway. Working together with student government and university officials, they secured a license to broadcast in 1994 and went on the air September 28, 1995. Andrew joins the show this week to recount this history, and establish the station’s place in Irish broadcast history. Also joining is Paula Healy, who has served as Flirt’s station manager since 2005.
Paula coordinated a 25-hour marathon broadcast to celebrate the station’s quarter-century anniversary. She tells us about how the station serves the university and Galway communities, and how they’ve stayed on air during COVID-19 lockdowns and quarantines.
The post Podcast #266 – Flirt FM Celebrates 25 Years of College & Community Radio in Ireland appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Over the past few months, there’s been a flurry of media attention focused on the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Some reports describe it as a “little-known” agency and, in fact, it may seem mysterious to many in the United States, since it oversees international broadcasting programs all over the world, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
USAGM has been in the news following the appointment of new CEO Michael Pack, subsequent personnel changes, and even a congressional hearing on September 24. This week we explore the history of USAGM and talk about some of the recent changes at the organization. We are joined on the show by Jane Curry (Professor of Political Science at Santa Clara University), Mark Pomar (National Security Fellow at Clements Center for National Security at University of Texas, Austin) and Brandon Burke (Associate Archivist at the Hoover Institution Archives). Jennifer Waits and Eric Klein host this week’s episode.
The post Podcast #265 – Inside the “Little Known” Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for Global Media appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Joe Boyd is best known as a record producer (he worked with Pink Floyd and Nick Drake just to name two artists) and he is the author of the book “White Bicycles, Making Music in the 1960’s.” In 2015 he launched a podcast. Joe Boyd’s A-Z which ran for 52 episodes (that’s one episode for every letter of the alphabet – twice over). Before all this, in 1961 he had a Jazz show on WBAI and KPFK he started at age 19.
The post Podcast # 264 – Joe Boyd appeared first on Radio Survivor.
With wildfires raging up and down the west coast of the United States amid the coronavirus pandemic, many radio stations are facing different types of challenges than a year ago. Vacaville Christian Schools’ radio station KVCB-LP (aka VCS Radio) is in a community that was hit hard by a wild fire in August 2020. When a nearby commercial radio station was knocked off the air, middle school/high school station KVCB-LP stepped up to provide emergency broadcasting.
Conservatory Education Director Ralph Martin leads the radio station and managed the station’s response during this crisis. Martin is our guest this week and shares with us the work being done at KVCB-LP during not only an extended period of distance learning for students, but also during a local emergency. Martin also manages the school’s music program and is philosophical and upbeat about the importance of embracing new and creative ways to teach, perform, and broadcast, especially when faced with unique challenges.
The post Podcast #263 – Broadcasting High School Radio through Wildfires and a Pandemic appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Eric Nuzum started NPR’s podcasting efforts in 2005. He worked at NPR for over a decade and helped produce hit shows like “TED Radio Hour” and “Invisibila.” He left NPR for Audible, where he led Amazons efforts in short form audio and podcasts until 2018.
Eric Nuzum is the author of the book “Make Noise: A Creator’s Guide to Podcasting and Great Audio Storytelling.”
On Radio Survivor today we talk to Eric Nuzum about how he began his career in radio at a college station; his advice for community radio stations when it comes to podcasting; and where to begin when you plan to start a new podcast project to give you the best chance to reach the audience you are seeking.
This rebroadcast concludes with a fresh and lengthy audio commentary from Eric Klein on the interview which includes some listener feed back and a Q and A that originates from the first time the interview aired. (It is worth noting that the original interview dates back to the moment just a matter of days before the Pandemic began to restructure life in the United States, which is part of the focus of the new commentary on the episode and it’s themes. )
Show Notes:
Podcast #64 How to do News and Public Affairs – in which our guest Briand Edwards-Tiekert gives advice to new radio and podcast producers
The post Podcast #262 – Eric Nuzum (rebroadcast) appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Jennifer, Eric and Paul get the gang back together to remember community radio innovator Lorenzo Milam, who passed away on July 19. We reflect on how he helped to propagate a community access model of broadcasting that departed somewhat from the model of the first Pacifica stations, and was reflective of the counter-cultural currents of the 1960s and 70s. Jennifer shares highlights of her correspondence with Lorenzo about his days in college radio at Haverford, where Jennifer also broadcast.
Then we catch up on some important news from the summer, including terrestrial radio’s continued #1 “share of ear,” new non-commercial radio license opportunities in the US, the clock ticking down on Franken FMs and a lament for the closure of Radio Free America.
The post Podcast #261 – Remembering Lorenzo Milam appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Border radio is one of our favorite topics at Radio Survivor and on this week’s episode we dig into the history of radio broadcasting on the northern border of Mexico. Scholar Sonia Robles shares the stories of some of the lesser-known, small broadcasters whose histories are often overshadowed by the wild tales of higher power border blaster stations. Robles is the author of Mexican Waves: Radio Broadcasting along Mexico’s Northern Border, 1930-1950 and Assistant Professor of History at University of Delaware.
The post Podcast #260 – Radio History on the Northern Border of Mexico appeared first on Radio Survivor.
On August 27, 2020, nomadic online radio station Radioee.net is presenting a live, translingual 24-hour broadcast, Wireless, featuring 24 radio stations from all over the world. Taking place on the 100th anniversary of the first radio broadcast in Argentina and the first mass public entertainment broadcast in the world; Wireless launches at midnight Buenos Aires time on August 27, 2020. This date is significant, as it recognizes the inaugural Argentinian broadcast from Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires on the same day back in 1920, which used smuggled Marconi equipment to present a Wagner opera.
Radioee.net founders Stephanie Sherman, Agustina Woodgate and Hernan Woodgate join us on the show to share their plans for this fascinating broadcast featuring radio stations in Buenos Aires, Wuhan, Nigeria, Cuba, Uruguay, New York, and more. On the episode they talk about some of the topics that will be touched upon, from paratelepathy to radio history to acrobatics.
The post Podcast #259 – Radioee.net Celebrates 100 Year History of Wireless Communication appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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The FCC is testing its luck with the Supreme Court, after years of failure in attempting to revise media ownership regulations using justifications that pass Constitutional scrutiny. Prof. Christopher Terry from the University of Minnesota joins us to explain what the Commission argues, and what its odds are.
However, a more immediate concern is that the Trump administration is pushing against Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This is the piece of law that protects websites of all kinds from liability resulting from the content that users post. While this provides a shield to social media like Facebook and Twitter, the umbrella stretches to cover more grassroots media, like any community media platform – including radio – that allows user comments or contributions.
The administration has filed a petition asking the FCC to evaluate its options to regulate speech online – a chilling thought for any radio station that’s worried about the consequences of getting an indecency fine. Yet, this regulation would extend way beyond the boundaries of indecency, into political speech. Prof. Terry says that it looks a lot like the boogeyman version of the Fairness Doctrine, something that Republicans have trotted out as an imminent threat to free speech for decades since it was abandoned by the FCC. So it’s ironic that it’s a Republican administration pushing for its reinstitution under different pretences.
We also touch on the Trump administration’s attempt to challenge state-level net neutrality laws that sprung up in the wake of the FCC’s decision to overturn its Open Internet order.
The post Podcast #258 – Trump Admin Raises the Specter of the Fairness Doctrine appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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On July 14, 1995 the file extension .MP3 was chosen and set in place for an audio format that would go on to change music. Artist, scholar and curator John Kannenberg marks the 25th anniversary of this event with an online exhibit, “MP3 @ 25: The Anniversary Exhibition” at his Museum of Portable Sound.
John joins this episode to explain why it’s important to observe this anniversary, and to recount some of the milestones in MP3’s history. From the somewhat apocryphal story of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” as the first MP3, to the introduction of the iPod, he helps us understand the role of MP3 in delivering us into the fully digital music universe we now inhabit.
We also dive into his singular museum, which exists on a single iPhone 4s, with a printed catalog to guide the visitor. Because of COVID-19 John is now available to provide guided online tours of the many sound artifacts that Museum of Portable Sound has in its archives. Either way, it’s about experiencing sound directly and purely, without distraction. (And we are here for the love of Radio and Sound.)
The post Podcast #257 – Marking a Quarter-Century of MP3 appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Poet Kenneth Goldsmith created UbuWeb in 1996 as an online repository for obscure avant-garde art that, by virtue of having little commercial potential, was hard to find. Audio was an early component of the archive, owing to Kenneth’s interest in sound poetry, an even more obscure art form.
Since then he’s served as the chief, and only, curator and proprietor of UbuWeb, which has become an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in underground and unpopular culture. Kenneth chronicled his efforts in the new book “Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb.” He joins this episode to recount some of these tales, telling us what inspired him to build UbuWeb in the first place, and why he maintains it using simple html code of the sort used in the early web, rather than updating to use the latest database and dynamic website platforms.
Because much of the work on UbuWeb is archived without explicit permission from the creators – living or dead – Kenneth explains why he views “cease and desist” orders as an invitation to dialog and how community radio station WFMU was one of his inspirations. We also get into the relationship between piracy and preservation, why he loves “the misuses of UbuWeb” and the value of “folk archiving” and “folk law.”
The post Podcast #256 – The Robin Hood of the Avant-Garde appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Carl Malamud is credited with having one of the very first streaming internet talk radio shows, “Geek of the Week,” beginning in 1993. And because it was available for download, too, it’s considered a proto-podcast.
Carl joins us this week to dig into this early history of internet radio, recounting how his efforts quickly snowballed from hosting a weekly interview show with internet trailblazers to conducting live broadcasts of the National Press Club luncheons and Congressional hearings.
Prof. Andrew Bottomley of SUNY Oneonta also joins as our special expert co-host to help us place these achievements in historical perspective. Carl tells us he was always more motivated to “do it for real,” rather than write a policy paper, and that he was also driven by a commitment to openness, to ensure public access to information of civic import. Today he continues working for the cause of public information as the founder and president of Public Resource.
The post Podcast #255 – ‘Geek of the Week’ and the Beginning of Internet Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
On this week’s show, we take a trip back to the early 20th century to learn about the recording industry’s intertwined relationship with radio and music culture. Our guest is Kyle Barnett, Associate Professor of Media Studies in the Department of Communication at Bellarmine University.
Barnett’s forthcoming book, Record Cultures: The Transformation of the U.S. Recording Industry, looks at the early history of the recording industry in the United States. On the episode, Barnett shares tidbits from his research and reminds us of the complexity of the media landscape, calling for scholars to not neglect exploring how industries are interconnected. Along the way, we learn about phonograph parlors, the differences between public and private listening, and why some record labels asked their artists to stay off the radio.
This episode is a rebroadcast from November of 2019.
The post Podcast #254 – The Intertwined History of the Radio and Recording Industries appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Internet radio was born more than 25 years ago, yet, according to Edison Research, only in the last month has the medium garnered just 10% of all broadcast listening time in the US. We might lay at least some blame on the commercial radio industry, which didn’t embrace it until well into the 2000s, long after the college, community and public radio trailblazers.
Prof. Andrew Bottomley returns to the show to help us understand the reasons behind mainstream broadcasters’s delayed acceptance, and explore why college broadcasters were at the forefront. His new book is “Sound Streams: A Cultural History of Radio-Internet Convergence,” detailing the first comprehensive history of online streaming audio.
We also discuss the similarities between long-distance listening, a/k/a DXing, and internet radio, and how the societal changes wrought by COVID-19 are affecting online radio and podcasting.
The post Podcast 253 – Sound Streams: Dissecting the History of Internet Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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This week, we explore the ancestor of public radio in the United States: educational radio. Our guest, Stephanie Sapienza, helps to bring educational radio archives to life through her work on the multi-institution “Unlocking the Airwaves” project. As Digital Humanities Archivist at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities at University of Maryland, Sapienza is working with audio from the National Association of Educational Broadcasters (NAEB). She describes the breadth of materials in the collection and its role in public radio history and also shares more about her unique (and entertaining) presentation at the Orphan Film Symposium in which she reported on old time educational radio in an old time radio style.
The post Podcast # 252 – Exploring the Seeds of Public Radio in Educational Radio Archives appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Our guest on Radio Survivor is producing The Global Queer Read-In: A Virtual Pride Event; a 12 hour long webcast to celebrate LGBTQ literature. Brian DeShazor is the brand new CEO of Overnight Productions, which produces the radio show This Way Out. This Way Out has been on the air for 31 years, a weekly radio program, heard on about 200 community stations around the world. Brian DeShazor was last heard on Radio Survivor back on ep #187 when we talked about his incredible project to preserve and archive the sounds of queer radio from the latter half of the 20th century.
Show Notes:
The post Podcast #251 – The Global Queer Read-In appeared first on Radio Survivor.
One of the biggest celebrities in Los Angeles in the early part of the 20th century was Aimee Semple McPherson. She inspired scandalous headlines and fictional depictions, including the character Sister Molly on the current Showtime series, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels. Yet the story that is less frequently told is McPherson’s embrace of radio. She built her own powerful station, KFSG, in Los Angeles in the 1920s, which operated from the grand Angelus Temple, where her Foursquare Church was headquartered.
On this episode, scholar Tona Hangen joins us to shed more light into the radio work of Aimee Semple McPherson and to also provide some context about the early days of Christian radio evangelists in the United States. Hangen is the author of Redeeming the Dial: Radio, Religion and Popular Culture in America and is Professor of History at Worcester State University.
The post Podcast #250 – Aimee Semple McPherson and the Early History of Radio Evangelists appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Scholar Jocelyn Robinson says about one-third of Historically Black Colleges and Universities have radio stations. Her mission is to survey them and help preserve their histories and recorded legacies through the HBCU Radio Station Archival Survey Project, which she directs.
On this episode Robinson tells us about this project, and explains why it’s important to preserve this heritage. Her interest in radio was sparked at WYSO-FM in Yellow Springs, Ohio, a station founded by college students which won a grant to digitize and protect its archives which were maintained for decades almost by benign neglect. Robinson created a radio show for WYSO, pulling from this rich store of historical recordings, called “Rediscovered Radio.” The experience prompted her to widen the search to HBCUs.
In this we explore the reasons why relatively few college and university stations have active archival and preservation programs, how station licenses are “an institutional asset” and the cultural shift that has turned us all into documentarians.
This episode is a rebroadcast of #232 from February, 2020.
The post Podcast #249 – Documenting & Preserving Radio at HBCUs appeared first on Radio Survivor.
On this week’s episode, scholar Lerone Martin shares with us the fascinating history of African-American preachers who distributed their sermons on 78rpm records during a time when they had limited access to the radio in the 1920s-1940s.
Martin, Associate Professor in Religion and Politics at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, is the author of Preaching on Wax: The Phonograph and the Making of Modern African American Religion.
This is a rebroadcast of episode #186 from March of 2019.
The post Podcast #248 – African American Preachers on Wax appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Over the course of four seasons, the Peabody-nominated podcast “Scene on Radio,” a production of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, has earned a reputation for tackling head-on difficult topics around race, gender, justice and equity. But it didn’t start out that way.
It started life as a documentary anthology that host and producer John Biewen calls a “hodge podge.” Then, for the second season John decided to take on race in America by exploring the history and meaning of whiteness. That season, “Seeing White,” forged a new path for the podcast, proving that there was an audience willing to take a deep dive into challenging topics.
John joins the show this week to talk about “Scene on Radio,” and help us understand why and how a white male radio journalist, such as himself, can and should spearhead critical examinations of whiteness and men – the topic of season three – and a revisionist history of democracy in America, as in the current season, “The Land That Never Has Been.” Though he takes on much of the production work himself, for analysis and guidance he turns to co-hosts like Celeste Headlee (“Men”) and Rutgers professor Chenjerai Kumanyika, alongside the many historians and experts who provide facts and perspective.
Though the podcast is unflinching in challenging accepted and closely-held narratives and beliefs, John notes that he’s received relatively little backlash, and tells us why he thinks that is. He also gives us a peek behind the scenes at how he produces a multi-part documentary podcast, and how he and Chenjerai navigate their signature introductions and wrap-ups that help listeners digest each episode.
The post Podcast #247 – Scene on Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Portrayals of radio in popular culture provide an interesting glimpse at radio’s role in society. At Radio Survivor, we’ve long been fascinated by radio depictions on both the small and large screen; so it is a treat to dive into this topic with Hemrani Vyas, Programming Coordinator at Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Vyas curated an entire day of radio-themed films for the cable network, focusing on the era of 1930 to 1950. This week we talk about some of the featured films and also dig into a broader discussion about the changing images of radio in the movies.
The post Podcast #246 – Radio in the Movies appeared first on Radio Survivor.
In 2019 we celebrated International Women’s Day by recording a fascinating interview about women’s radio history with University of Louisville Professor of History Christine Ehrick.
Author of Radio and the Gendered Soundscape: Women and Broadcasting in Argentina and Uruguay, 1930-1950, Ehrick schools us on the hidden history of a pioneering women’s radio station in Uruguay. Founded in 1935, Radio Femenina quickly became a hotbed for feminist and activist programming, beaming its signal from Montevideo and across the river into Argentina. Ehrick provides context for the station’s origins and discusses how it functioned during some tumultuous political periods in the region.
Our Patreon supporters get to hear more of our conversation with Ehrick in a special bonus episode. She shares more personal stories of a radio historian on the hunt for treasure in the official archives and on Ebay.
This episode originally aired in March of 2019 as #184.
The post Podcast #245 – Hidden Women’s Radio History in Uruguay appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Some consider the late 1960s through the mid-1990s to be a “golden age” of college radio. History professor Katherine Rye Jewell, from Fitchburg State University, notes that the period begins with college stations taking to the FM dial, and concludes with the rise of the internet. During that time, college radio stations certainly at times did have prominence in the culture, which meant they also were subject to complaints and kerfuffles, sometimes gaining the attention of local media and politicians.
As part of the research for her upcoming book, “Live from the Underground,” Kate has been diving into many of the controversies, and sharing highlights on Twitter. On air content was definitely one of the flashpoints, especially as the culture wars heated up in the 1980s. While relatively few FCC actions or fines were issued, Kate explains that the Commission preferred college and university administrations keep stations in check, and many did, resulting in a kind of chilling effect that particularly effected emerging music forms like hip-hop.
The reverberations of this time are still felt at many college and community stations, especially where volunteers and staffers still remember when the risk of a $10,000 indecency fine seemed – and probably was – very palpable.
On this live-on-the-air episode, we dig into many entertaining garden paths and stories that no fan of left-end-of-the-dial radio should miss.
The post Podcast #244 – Exploring the So-Called ‘Golden Age’ of College Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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A common theme on Radio Survivor is that claims of being first should be viewed skeptically. From purported first college radio station to first internet simulcast, we’ve learned that there’s always another challenger to the prize.
This time around, however, we can say this is definitively the first ever episode of Radio Survivor broadcast, and recorded, live on the air. We make the leap into live broadcasting at the request of Portland, OR community station XRAY.fm, which is the station that prompted us to turn our podcast into a proper weekly radio show. They have the task of conducting a fund drive in the midst of a stay-at-home-order, so they asked their shows to try to broadcast live – remotely – one way or another. We were more than happy to comply, each of us from our respective homes, united over a videoconference and an Icecast stream to the XRAY studios.
Fittingly, we take up the topic of firsts, as we note how internet broadcasting and inexpensive automation technology have proven to be tremendously helpful tools for community and college radio during this pandemic – even if many stations absolutely prefer to be 100% live. Staying on the air is vital for listeners and for programmers and hosts, keeping these connections flowing with energy.
We wrap up with some positive college radio news.
The post Podcast #243 – A Radio Survivor First appeared first on Radio Survivor.
Did you know that a lot of folks in Europe listen to radio on their televisions? Neither did we, until we talked with James Cridland, editor of the daily Podnews email newsletter and radio futurologist. He explains that outside of North America much of radio is enjoyed on more platforms, from digital DAB to, yes, television.
With a career reaching back to the early internet forays of the BBC and Virgin Radio in the UK, and as a frequent international conference speaker, James has a broad base of experience around the world. Now based in Brisbane, Australia, he joins the show to help us put radio in a global perspective.
In the process we also learn that James got his start in radio by starting a pirate station in his Yorkshire boarding school, and that a supermarket radio station is the most popular digital station Down Under. That ultimately leads us to a discussion of durability of radio, based upon human connection and shared experience
Image Credit: flickr / Thomas Hawk (CC BY-NC 2.0)
The post Podcast #242 – Radio on the TV with James Cridland appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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WBCN in Boston, MA is one of the storied freeform FM stations in American commercial radio history. We’re talking about it because there’s a recent documentary film, entitled “WBCN and the American Revolution,” that dives into its history, and how WBCN’s early days in the late 60s and early 70s are intertwined with the counter culture movement in that city.
Our guest is filmmaker Bill Lichtenstein, who was also on-air at WBCN during its formative years. Though much has been said about cities like San Francisco and New York in this era, the stories of Boston are less prevalent in our common cultural history. The story is interesting because the station functioned much like a community station, more like WBAI in New York, than the typical commercial station of the time.
In particular, under the direction of Danny Schechter, “The News Dissector,” who got his start at the station, WBCN wove politically challenging news and public affairs into its music format, reporting live on the scene from pivotal events of the day.
The post Podcast #241 – WBCN and the American Revolution appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Ken Freedman is the General Manager and the Program Director of WFMU, a free form community radio station in Jersey City, New Jersey that prides itself on it’s live, in studio sound from every one of it’s DJ’s. So this particular crisis, the Pandemic and the Lock Down, is a unique challenge.
“This disaster is so completely different from any disaster we’ve ever had before such as 9-11, or Hurricane Sandy,” Ken told us on this week’s episode. They are running the station with a small skeleton crew and for the first time ever, they are relying on a lot of rebroadcasts of archived shows. Although Ken is still requiring all of his DJ’s (many of whom do not yet have the gear at home to produce live radio) to participate in the live online chat forum that WFMU had already had built. It’s a compromise Ken is calling “half live.”
The crisis has also increased the radio’s online audience. “Our streaming traffic and online traffic has gone through the roof,” Ken said.
WFMU also has three online-only channels with about 50 volunteer DJ’s who have always been broadcasting live, from their own home studios. Now those remote DJ’s are the online experts who Ken Freedman plans to connect with his WFMU DJ’s that need a little help to learn the ropes of home broadcasting. All of this though, is something that Ken hopes is only temporary. Getting back to live, community radio where everyone uses the same studio and interacts inside the same building is an important part of WFMU’s culture.
This interview was recorded in the morning of April 2, 2020. Careful lovers of radio and sound will note the occasional whine of Ken Freedman’s puppy, who is a very good puppy.
The post Podcast #240 – WFMU is Still On the Air During the Pandemic appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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Raven Radio, KCAW-FM, serves Sitka and the remote communities of Southeast Alaska with public radio content, local news and volunteer-produced programming. Like “shelter in place” elsewhere in the lower 48, Sitka is on what they call a “hunker down” advisory. We talk with KCAW General Manager and friend of the show, Becky Meiers about how the station is balancing staff safety and vital public service during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Right now radio broadcasters are considered essential personnel, so they may travel to the station’s studios, but the advised 6-feet of social distance requires only two people can be on premises at any one time – one upstairs and one downstairs. That’s prompted some shifts in daytime programming when it’s important to have at least one news or operations person on hand at all times.
Because KCAW is often the only reliable information real-time information source for remote villages that have limited internet and landlines, Becky serves on the local emergency planning committee and coordinates closely with emergency personnel. At the same time, the station continues to provide music and cultural programming for that much needed break.
When news of the pandemic first hit, KCAW staff and management assembled a preparedness plan. Though there were no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Sitka when we recorded on March 27, once a first case is confirmed, the station will move forward to the next phase of its plan. Learn what that plan is, and how KCAW engages with its community and listenership in this interview.
However,
The post Podcast #239 – Hunkering Down with Raven Radio in Sitka, Alaska appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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The University of Virgina’s WTJU now only permits one person in their studios at one time and has five remote locations ready to take over live broadcasting. That’s a couple of ways that community and college stations are coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Community radio WTJU General Manager Nathan Moore joins this week to explain how university campus-based stations are coping with the ever-changing situation. He is also the staff adviser to student-run LPFM WXTJ. He tells us how forging alliances with local businesses and groups has helped the station provide original programming and a unique community service during this challenging time.
WTJU is primarily a music station, but is able to weave important news and information into its regular programming, without breaking format. We discuss how while a full-on talk program isn’t suited to all listeners or all stations, that doesn’t mean a music station can’t be a vital community resource.
We also review audio listening data from the just-released 2020 Infinite Dial survey. Radio listening continues to change, while podcasting continues to grow. We reflect on what this means for community and college radio.
The post Podcast #238 – Social Distancing, Going Remote and Automation during Global Pandemic appeared first on Radio Survivor.
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