Franken FMs are the radio service that refuses to die, even after the FCC ostensibly pulled the plug this past summer. Recall that these are former analog low-power TV stations on channel 6 whose audio could be heard at about 87.7 FM. Analog LPTV shut down on July 13, 2021, but then Venture Technologies Group was granted “Special Temporary Authority” to keep a couple of its stations broadcasting an analog FM audio signal alongside their digital video signals.

Now the number stations has grown to about a “half-dozen,” according to Radio World, in an piece that taps some of the architects of the new generation 3.0 digital television standard to get their take on this experiment. One says to make space for the analog FM signal, “is to actually lower spectral efficiency.” Another is skeptical, as well, saying, “[t]he system may work and be useful, but the information is not available yet to prove it.” A third was more optimistic, noting, “[w]ith the limitations of FM spectrum, they are making use of the FCC rules and channel segmentation philosophy. They’re putting it to good use.”

That said, the experiment still is temporary, and it would seem the initial six month lease is coming due soon. The stations may still petition for an extension, which the FCC would likely grant at least once. But an actual rulemaking will be required if Franken FMs are to become permanent fixtures on the dial.

Radio futurologist James Cridland observes that the BBC has announced plans to make some radio shows available as podcasts exclusive to the BBC Sounds app for 28 days, which also means they’ll be unavailable outside the UK during that period. It also means these programs will not be playable on other podcast apps, like Apple Podcasts, even for UK listeners. Cridland deems it, “another disappointing move from a broadcaster that should be widening its potential audience, not limiting it.”

He also notes additional broadcasters doing the same, while others, like Norway’s NRK, are pulling older archives off open, third-party apps. “In an age where radio consumption is in slow decline in many parts of the world, I’d suggest that anything that removes opportunities for listeners to discover new stuff is regrettable,” he concludes.

If CDs were recently declared dead, they’re sure enjoying the afterlife in 2022, as the format approaches the ripe age of 40. This past week erstwhile online music publication Pitchfork tossed its hat in the ring, but taking the additional step of talking to actual young people who’ve acquired the compact disc habit. A New York University sophomore and WNYU DJ says that she and her friends are, “on the CD wave.” Another college radio DJ at the University of Texas at Arlington reveals, “I have three big cases full of CDs that I play all the time,” while a student who writes for the Lawrence University newspaper reports, CDs are desirable because, “[w]hen all your life is virtual, even looking on Spotify can seem like draining work.”

As I’ve noted before, at least some of the Gen Z interest in CDs is driven by the current price advantage. The co-owner of California chain Amoeba Music says many classic albums can be had for just $4 to $5. I saw that for myself when I visited the Hollywood outlet back in 2019.

Meanwhile, across the pond, NME columnist Mark Beaumont admits,

“When the coroners come to collect my body, with ghoulish press photographers trailing behind to document the horror and depravity, local press will no doubt dub me The Disc Man. Entering my office space will feel like unearthing Spotify’s underground database – thousands upon thousands of CDs, stacked high to the ceiling and piled in mounds across doorways.”

Yet, despite his own passion, he had doubts about a full-fledged revival in 5-inch silver discs. Comparing the physical operation of playback to operating a household appliance, lacking in the romanticism of vinyl and turntables.

Back in April 2020 we talked with author, filmmaker and former DJ Bill Lichtenstein about groundbreaking Boston freeform radio station WBCN, the subject of his documentary “WBCN and the American Revolution.” Lichtenstein has authored a new companion book about the station, and recently guested on Monocle Radio’s “The Stack” to discuss it.

The post Rough Notes: Franken FMs Live On, BBC Geofences, More CD Revival, WBCN Book appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Being a radio fanatic, I keep an eye out for unusual radio-themed items. With the holiday shopping season upon us, it’s as good a time as any to share some recent finds, particularly since we haven’t done any Radio Survivor gift guides in awhile.

With that, here’s my 2018 Holiday Gift Guide for those in search of quirky (and not-so-quirky) radio-themed gifts:

1. Chocolate Radio

I picked up this novelty radio at Archie McPhee in Seattle and there’s something incredibly satisfying about an item that is so unusual that you can’t find it anywhere online! It looks like a tasty chocolate bar, but sounds like a radio. It’s not the best radio. The tuner is comprised of a scan button and a reset button, so it was tough for me to locate many stations. A personal listening device, it does not have external speakers, but you can listen to it with the chocolate bean ear buds included with purchase.

Chocolate FM radio. Photo: J. Waits/Radio Survivor

2. WVKR’s Dolphin Shower Radio

After seeing the cute dolphin shaped shower radio posted on social media by WVKR (Vassar College), I was even more motivated to schedule a station visit. Lucky for me, there were still some of these promotional items on hand when I stopped by and I plopped down my donation so that I could have my very own dolphin shower radio. Although it’s tricky for me to get fantastic indoor reception on a shower radio in San Francisco, the adorable quotient makes me willing to put up with some static.

WVKR’s dolphin shower radio. Photo: J. Waits/Radio Survivor

3. The Radio Historian’s 2019 Calendar of Early Radio Remote Broadcasts

John Schneider puts together annual calendars featuring spectacular vintage photographs. The latest one includes “colorized photographs of field reporters transmitting from outside their broadcast studio.” A few older editions of the calendar are also available, with images of vintage radio buildings and studios.

Calendar and radio buffs will also enjoy Scott Fybush’s 2019 Tower Site Calendar. This will be the 18th edition of this wonderfully geeky foray into radio tower sites.

4. Haynes Retro Radio Kit

I’ve experimented with a few radio-making kits over the years, with varying levels of success. The 1970s-style radio design pictured on the box for the Haynes Retro Radio Kit piqued my interest; so I picked this up for a future radio-making foray. Unlike some of the other radios that I’ve made, that were all solely FM or AM, this one results in a combination AM/FM radio. A similar item, the Haynes Build your own FM Radio Calendar Kit is styled like an Advent calendar and features 24 daily experiments.

Haynes Retro Radio kit. Photo: J. Waits/Radio Survivor

5. Lee de Forest: King of Radio, Television, and Film

I’m in the midst of reading the Tom Lewis book Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, which casts inventor Lee de Forest as a bit of a scallywag. The well-read tome and resulting Ken Burns documentary Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio has influenced popular perceptions of de Forest. In his extensive and well-researched biography of de Forest, Lee de Forest: King of Radio, Television, and Film, Mike Adams points that out and works to complicate the story of Lee de Forest, highlighting his profound influence on radio, television and film.

6. Freeplay Encore Buddy Self-Powered Radio

In March, the inventor of the Freeplay hand-crank radio, Trevor Baylis, died at the age of 80. In 1991 he came up with the concept for a wind-up radio. The New York Times writes, “…he saw a television program that mentioned one obstacle in the growing AIDS crisis in Africa: Reliable information was not reaching many people, because electricity was scarce or nonexistent and batteries were prohibitively expensive. A radio that ran on muscle power, Mr. Baylis reasoned, would give everyone an opportunity to hear the news, not to mention listen to music.”

His hand-crank radio Freeplay Radio has been recognized for both its function and design and is even part of the collection at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.

7. Software-defined-Radio

On episode 168 of the Radio Survivor show/podcast, we had a fascinating discussion with Thomas Witherspoon about how one can create a radio time machine by making radio spectrum recordings using a software-defined-radio (SDR). Essentially, it’s possible to capture everything on a given radio spectrum using that tool, so that you can, for example, save a glimpse of the AM radio dial in your community on a specific point in time. I’d be hard-pressed to recommend a specific SDR, so I’ll direct you to Witherspoon’s three-part primer on SDRs on his SWLing Post site.

8. Wooden Walkman Clutch

OK. It’s not a radio, but I think of Walkman cassette players as radio-adjacent. This wooden purse is imprinted to look like an old school Sony Walkman and I think it’s just adorable. It comes in red, white, or baby blue.

9. Wooden Phone Amplifier

Again. Not a radio, but vintage-leaning audio lovers might dig this petite “wood acoustic amplifier for smartphones/mobile devices,” which features an antique phonograph horn design. At the bargain price of $15.99, this is on my Cyber Monday wish list (hint hint).

10. Portable Shortwave Radio with Built-in Recorder

Our conversation with Thomas Witherspoon on last week’s Radio Survivor show/podcast reignited my interest in exploring shortwave radio. So, it’s likely the perfect time to take a look at this cool little portable radio that my colleague Paul reviewed earlier this year: the Tivdio V-115. It not only gets AM and FM radio, but also shortwave. A serious bonus is that it also has recording capabilities so that you can capture air checks of interesting radio that you encounter. Another option that Paul mentions in a follow-up review is the Kaito KA29, which also gets a variety of radio bands and has recording capabilities.

11. Membership in a Historical Radio Society or Radio Museum

My final suggestion this year is to gift your radio enthusiast pals with a membership to an organization that is working to preserve radio history. A few ideas include the California Historical Radio Society (which is building a museum in Alameda, California), the Maritime Radio Historical Society, the Antique Wireless Association, the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting, and the Spark Museum of Electrical Invention.

For other suggestions, see the radio clubs links on the Antique Wireless Association website.

More Gift Ideas

For even more suggestions, see the previous guides that we’ve put together over the years:

5 Funky Last Minute Gifts for Radio Fanatics (2016)

2014 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fanatics – From Radio in a Jar to Bike Radios (2014)

Holiday Gifts for Easy and Enjoyable Radio Listening (2014)

Ten Essential Radio Movies for the Holidays (2014)

Eclectic Gifts for the Radio, Podcast and Streaming Music Fan (or Nerd) (2013)

Holiday Gift Guide for Radio-Lovin’ Fashion Mavens (2013)

Happy Holidays: Here’s an Emergency Radio (2012)

Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Listeners and Budding Podcasters (2012)

2012 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fans (2012)

Holiday Gifts for the Radio Survivor: Paul’s Recommended Gear (2011)

Great Radio History Books for the Holidays (2011)

2011 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fans (2011)

Paul’s Recommended Radios for Holiday Gifty Time (2010)

2010 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fans (2010)

Top Holiday Gifts for Radio Lovers (2009)

The post 2018 Holiday Guide: Quirky Radio-Themed Gifts for the Audio Obsessed appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Here at Radio Survivor we are committed to weekly coverage of low power FM radio, so we’re very pleased to feature an interview with Christina Dunbar-Hester for our Academic Series. Dr. Dunbar-Hester is an Assistant Professor in Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University and she recently published a fascinating book on media activism and low power radio. Her book, Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism (MIT Press, 2014), makes a strong case for the relevance and importance of local, community radio in the digital age.

Below, Christina explains her research process and her motivation for studying low power, local radio. She also elaborates on the relationship between “free radio” advocates and LPFM broadcasting, and raises compelling questions about how democratic spaces online might be inspired by low power broadcasting.

Radio Survivor: Your recent book, Low Power to the People, traces the activist movement that helped establish a framework for licensed LPFM stations. How did you initially come to be interested in researching low power radio broadcasting?

Christina Dunbar-Hester: When I was considering going back to graduate school in the late 1990s, there were a lot of heady claims swirling around about access to media technology as a main plank of a democratizing project. This was an era of high Internet hype in general, but I was particularly interested in the set of claims made by activists such as those in early Indymedia days about “being the media” and using media technologies counterbalance corporate and state power.

I hadn’t heard of low power radio or microradio at that point, but I knew I wanted to do research that engaged these issues, and also engaged the topic of “the Internet,” but without losing historical or cultural sensitivity to the fact that issues of power, voice, and expertise have a long prehistory; they don’t newly arise with the Internet, nor are Internet-based technologies the main way to redress power imbalance, of course.

So in about 2002-2003 when I heard about people advocating for low power broadcasting, who were not Luddites but were resisting being told to just “go on the Internet for your communication needs,” I thought that might be an interesting research project. I didn’t have a background in media activism, let alone microradio; I just thought that was a useful point of entry for these issues.

Radio Survivor: What is the state of LPFM broadcasting today in relation to the larger American broadcasting environment?

Christina Dunbar-Hester: LPFM is expanding right now due to the passage of the Local Community Radio Act of 2010; new stations that got licenses during that window are going on the air right now, so a lot of cities and towns are seeing new radio stations go on the air. And broadcasting is still going pretty strong: the most recent numbers I’ve seen are from 2013 and they report that more than 90% of Americans over age 12 listen to broadcast radio weekly, for at least a couple of hours per day.

But I might suggest that we step back and consider what is meant by the “broadcasting environment.” Broadcasting both refers to a set of social practices, and a set of institutions, technologies, and laws — what “broadcasting” is at any given moment occurs in how those things come together. When we talk about the broadcasting environment, do we mean just FM and AM transmissions? What about streaming? Or podcasts? Now a lot of people use smart phones to “listen to the radio”—but you’re doing this over your phone’s data plan, which is partly because your phone service provider (Verizon, AT&T, etc.) prefers that you pay them for that bandwidth. (This is in spite of the fact that a lot of mobile phones have been designed with the capacity to receive FM. The commercial broadcast lobby argues that turning on the FM receiver capacity in phones would make it easier for would-be listeners to tune in, without burning through their data.)

There are lots and lots of issues like this at any given moment, some more and some less visible to the public. How these issues play out rests on public knowledge, alliances that get formed between various social groups, corporate power, and the law (which is often playing catch-up with newer technologies, and interpreting new technologies in terms of precedents established around earlier technologies). I think we want to take an expansive view of the public interest across telecommunications platforms and assess that, as opposed to isolating broadcasting.

Radio Survivor: Given that alternative and community media organizations are often working with limited resources, financial and otherwise, researching them can often come with a set of challenges in terms of accessing research materials, such as archival documents. In exploring the history of this LPFM movement, particularly its pirate radio roots, what sort of resources did you use to tell this story and did you face any challenges in doing so?

Christina Dunbar-Hester: This is a great question. I had access to a good deal of microradio ephemera at various field sites and in the Prometheus archive. But it would have been a lot more challenging to do a project where broadcast content was central.

My book is primarily ethnographic, combining fieldwork and interviews. My main interest was what people were doing that I could observe, so the book captures as much of that as I could achieve; it looks at how activists promoted radio technology. I was able to get at some of the recent past with interviews, which included people who had done unlicensed microradio and had advocated for legal microradio/LPFM in Washington. I also had access to policy conversations, a lot of which were archived online (comments to the FCC and the like).

Radio Survivor: I would love to hear about the relationship between pirate radio and LPFM broadcasting. How did pirate radio broadcasting influence the LPFM movement and what sort of similarities and differences are there between these two types of radio?

Christina Dunbar-Hester: Well, “pirate” is kind of an overarching term that doesn’t necessarily connote any particular stance or affinity. Pirates have existed throughout the history of broadcasting for various reasons. But more narrowly, unlicensed microbroadcasters, some of whom called their transmissions “free radio,” were hugely influential for LPFM. In the 1980s and 1990s, there was no way for a small-scale broadcaster to obtain a license from the government, so a lot of folks took to the streets, by which I mean the airwaves, launching all these little stations as explicit electronic civil disobedience.

It’s obviously impossible to know how many of them there were, but there may have been around 1000 microradio stations in the mid-1990s. Two people with memorable stories, who were inspirational to other microradio broadcasters, were Mbanna Kantako in Springfield, IL in the late 1980s, and Stephen Dunifer in Berkeley, CA, in the 1990s. Dunifer had a high-profile court battle with the FCC when he refused to stop broadcasting, and the 9^th Circuit upheld his right to continue for a time. The members of Prometheus Radio Project in Philadelphia, who are the subject of my book, were inspired by the microbroadcasters to fight for legal access to the airwaves.

Radio Survivor: How is radio well-suited for media advocacy or for dealing with questions raised by media activists? Or is it? Could the medium be used more effectively to advance media advocacy both within and outside the academy?

Christina Dunbar-Hester: Radio, both historically and in the present, is a great point of entry into many points of contention in our present and future media landscape. (Though we don’t want to get so narrowly focused on any particular medium that we lose sight of the fact that the interesting questions cross media and platforms: e.g. who owns platforms, who is empowered to listen and to speak on them, etc.)

Symbolically, radio has some really vital lessons for media activism. LPFM, for example, exists in space on the spectrum, owned by the people, for noncommercial use by the people. Lots of spaces we treat like commons online are platforms and sites owned by corporate owners who see users as sources of revenue. The contrast is huge, and very meaningful. What would it look like to have a space online that is the equivalent of LPFM? How would that get built in terms of social and regulatory infrastructure, and what would it look like technically?

These are questions I get into with my students, who often grasp the idea of community media more generally through what we learn about the history of radio (including hams and LPFM; we don’t do much about CB in class), and it’s then a natural realization for them that social media platforms, even when they can occasionally have the feel of community media, are fundamentally not built to support the uses and values of public or community media.

The post Low Power Radio and Media Activism: An Interview with Christina Dunbar-Hester appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Earlier this year I wrote my first post for Radio Survivor following the annual Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference that took place in Seattle in March. In this initial post, I pointed to an increase of Sound Studies research at the conference and located within this field a vibrant cohort of radio researchers who are helping to make sense of the changes facing the radio industry today. Over the course of the year, there have been a number of exciting developments in the scholarly study of radio, including the establishment of the Radio Preservation Task Force.

The Task Force has helped inspire Radio Survivor’s Academic Series as many of its posts have featured findings from the project or have profiled Task Force researchers. As well, 2014 has seen the publication of exciting academic books on radio. Two that are currently on my shelf include Eric Weisbard’s Top 40 Democracy (an interview with the author was featured recently on Radio Survivor) and Christina Dunbar-Hester’s Low Power to the People (see Radio Survivor’s preview of the book).

My own work with the Task Force this year involved consulting university archives in Southwestern Ontario. In November, I wrote about some of my findings, including two digital/archival initiatives. York University in Toronto is home to the Mariposa Folk Foundation fonds, which includes radio broadcasts related to folk music for both Canadian and American audiences and some of this collection can be accessed online through the Celebrating Canadian Folk Music Project. At Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, there is an extensive collection of early Canadian educational radio holdings. This collection is currently featured online as an exhibit titled “90 Years of Queen’s Radio.”

The Academic Series also featured two interviews with members of the Radio Preservation Task Force. In late November, Kenneth Goldsmith shared his thoughts on archives, on issues of access to information in academia, and on the role of contemporary radio. Goldsmith stressed the importance of radio as a filter in an age of abundance. He explained:

Radio is still important because even though everything is available, you still need someone to show you what is what, the good from the bad. In other words, abundance means nothing without filtering, taste and aesthetic.”

More recently, Brian Gregory shared his work on educational radio broadcasting. Gregory discussed how he has integrated his academic research into his educational practice. Local radio broadcasting, according to Gregory, has great potential for meeting the goals of educators. Gregory said:

More voices need to be heard from educational stations that broadcast at the local level. This will benefit other educators who would like to use radio in their classrooms because they will be able to learn about new and innovative ways to use the medium, which, in turn, might inspire them to experiment with and develop their own ways to use radio for educational purposes.”

Although this Academic Series is a new initiative at Radio Survivor, the research and work featured throughout the series anticipates a strong 2015 for the study of radio. Looking forward, a conference at the Library of Congress is on the horizon for the Task Force, likely towards the end of next year.

Appropriately, given that my initial post for Radio Survivor followed this year’s SCMS conference, next year’s preliminary conference program draft for the meeting in Montreal has just been released. I’ve taken a quick glance at the program and it includes a number of panels and papers on radio and sound, including a panel on podcasting, one on War of the Worlds, another panel on North American public service media, one on local and national radio in the 1960s, a workshop on radio production cultures, and a workshop titled “The Problem of the Radio Canon.” This is just a brief overview, but there are many other panels and papers featuring radio as a subject.

Given the range of radio-related research featured at next year’s SCMS conference as well as the extensive preliminary findings of the Radio Preservation Task Force (an estimated 250,000 – 275,000 program transcriptions were reported in November), it’s safe to say that radio continues to be an active area for both new and established scholars. I’m extremely excited for what 2015 has in store.

The post Radio Survivor Academic Series 2014 Year in Review appeared first on Radio Survivor.

It’s getting down to the wire for holiday gift purchases and to ease your shopping stress, here’s the full list of this year’s Radio Survivor gift guides. As an added bonus, when you shop through Radio Survivor’s Amazon links, we get a little bit of cash, which helps us to keep the site up and running.

2014 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fanatics – From Radio in a Jar to Bike Radios

My annual list includes books, radios, fashion accessories, and more

Holiday Gifts for Easy and Enjoyable Radio Listening

Paul gives the run-down on some cool radios, speakers, and Internet listening tools.

Ten Essential Radio Movies for the Holidays

Matthew’s recommendations on great radio-themed movies for the film-o-phile on your list.

We’ve been writing up gift guides for several years now, so if you need additional ideas, take a look at our holiday gift guide archives.

The post The 2014 Radio Survivor Holiday Gift Guides appeared first on Radio Survivor.

There are a number of radio and music scholars who write for both academic and non-academic audiences. Eric Weisbard is one example of that. In the 1990s, he made his living as a rock critic for publications such as Spin and the Village Voice and today he is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at University of Alabama. In his new book, Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music, Weisbard delves into the history of radio formats. Specifically, he argues that radio formats have ultimately created multiple, “parallel mainstreams.”

As is the case for many scholars who end up writing about music and radio, Weisbard has a college radio past (he was on the air for 5 years in the 1980s). And he occasionally dabbles in radio to this day. Last week, I spoke with Weisbard about not only his book, but also about his personal connection with radio. He told me that the book grew out of his dissertation and explained that he expanded on that work by taking a look at radio in the 2000s and by digging into the history of rock radio station WMMS in Cleveland. Weisbard admitted that he isn’t a radio scholar and said that his approach is very much informed by his education and work as a historian.

Jennifer Waits: Tell me about your experience in college radio and how that informed your research.

Eric Weisbard: My college radio station, WPRB in Princeton, was the place that got me interested in music and very much led me on the path to both studying it and writing about it professionally…And I would also say that the college radio perspective of wanting to kind of present a view of music that’s different from the mainstream, ended up informing all my writing. So even though this book is a celebration of mainstream music, in some ways it’s written to tell people that what they think about the mainstream is wrong. So, in that way it’s very much in the spirit of college radio.

Jennifer: When did you do your dissertation?

Eric: In the years after…rockism and poptimism emerged as debated topics…I started working on my dissertation in 2005. In a lot of ways this began as an attempt to put a history around concepts like rockism and poptimism, even though…I ended up deciding that actually thinking about formats and genres was a way to take that discussion some place new.

Jennifer: Did you do radio in graduate school?

Eric:  No. Having been in college radio and having an affinity for radio is one of the reasons why when I started this project, radio was something I used as a touchstone. But the truth is that I’m not a radio person by and large and I’m not a radio scholar by and large. I’m a former rock critic teaching American Studies with a PhD in History who’s very interested in how music intersects the culture as a whole. From my perspective, radio is the most essential way that happens.

Jennifer: In your book you talk about radio formats as “under theorized” and music genres as “highly theorized.” Could you explain that a little bit more?

Eric: Formats, which attempt to match a group of sounds to a group of people, are different than genres, which are much more about an ideal of what music can be about…There’s something different about saying “my main concern is that this music speaks to a group of people” than to say “my music has to sound a certain way.” In other words, you’re prioritizing your ability to connect with people over your ability to make a particular kind of musical statement…Even though the desire that informs formats is a commercial desire…sometimes music that uses format thinking rather than genre thinking ends up speaking for groups of people who get left out when division of music is a more idealist one. And that’s the provocative claim of the book.

Jennifer: What do you think some of the most compelling formats might be?

Eric: I think the formats have basically stayed the same since the 70s, with the exception of the expanded role for Spanish language radio…When the commercial center of radio shifted to FM in the 1970s, it was right at the moment that all of those late 60s social and cultural issues had put identity right at the forefront and so different groups of Americans used this new space, FM radio, to claim portions of the center for themselves…The big picture is a small group of formats, Top 40, adult contemporary, rock, country, R&B, and since the late 1980s/1990s, Latin radio, those formats are the core formats of commercial radio…They each speak to different populations and groups of people who use them to hear stuff that wouldn’t be central otherwise and to have an experience of the culture in which who they are is defined as quintessentially normal.

Jennifer: Do you think freeform is a format?

Eric: Someone corrected me recently, because I’d always sort of thought that freeform was short for “free of format,” and he informed me that, no, freeform is a phrase that predates the format system. So it’s just a nice coincidence of language that you can hear freeform as meaning free of format. But what I think is that there’s no absolute rule for how different kinds of rock come across on radio. And, freeform, out of which, a lot of AOR evolved in the 1970s, out of which a certain amount of modern rock evolved in the 80s and 90s, out of which, I suspect, a certain amount of internet radio has evolved in the 2000s…Freeform remains this place of a kind of musical elitism that speaks to a certain section of the listening audience, but even more-so speaks to people who intend to be part of the creative class themselves…I now see it as very much connected to larger trends in American culture…being different from the mainstream…an expression of a certain kind of elite status. Is that cynical?

Jennifer: You devote one chapter to Cleveland rock radio station WMMS and all of its format changes over the years. Does the station hold special significance for you?

Eric: I knew I wanted to do a radio chapter and when I was thinking of how to bring rock more into this book…at some point I realized that WMMS was perfect for my purposes for a couple of reasons. One was, it was a midwestern station and I was really interested in how what had been seen as a collegiate thing/the rock of Woodstock had become by the 1970s, what’s often called blue collar rock, the rock of Bruce Springsteen, the rock of…Bob Seger, …the rock of any kind of sort of Heartland artist playing for a Heartland audience. And so I loved the idea of picking a midwestern radio station to follow this. And Cleveland, as the city of de-industrialization and rivaled only by maybe Detroit, was a great place to think about these things.

Then, the second amazing thing. It turned out that the program director of WMMS, John Gorman, who ran the station from 1973 to 1987 and then again for a couple of years in the 1990s,…had kept files of all his station memos for those many many years. He’d done his own memoirof the radio station on his own terms, based on those memos and since he was done, he was willing…[and] very generous to let me…just read through those memos and get a sense of the station from the inside.

Jennifer: What do you love about radio?

Eric: From the perspective of playing songs on the radio… last Friday night, for example, a friend who has a show on the NPR station here in Tuscaloosa, invited me to spin records for 2 hours. From that perspective, I love…playing anything you feel like, making connections and that’s the throwback to my college radio days. From the perspective of the person who wrote this book as he listens to radio still as almost a voyeur into other kinds of cultures, what I love about radio is that it makes the world normal…that it makes the world normal in five completely different ways simultaneously in virtually every place in America. That’s what I love about it.

The post Radio’s Top 40 Democracy: A Q&A with Author Eric Weisbard appeared first on Radio Survivor.

There’s a chill in the air, the Thanksgiving leftovers are nearly gone, and thoughts are turning to holiday shopping. For me, scoping out interesting radio-themed gifts is a highlight of the season, as there’s always something new that piques my interest. If you have a radio fan in your life or if you are searching for some items to put on your own wish list, take a look at some of my latest finds. Also be sure to scroll down to see more gift ideas from some of our prior gift guides.

1. Radio in a Jar

This single-station radio is actually on the top of my list. Although it won’t arrive in time for the winter holidays, you can pre-order for delivery in May, 2015. Dubbed the “Public Radio,” the single station FM radio, had a very successful Kickstarter campaign this fall, bringing in more than $88,000 in order to fund production of these radios built into small Mason Jars.

2. Huffy Radio Bike + Other Bike Radios

What could be cooler than a bicycle with a built-in radio? The Huffy Radio Bike first appeared in 1955, and included a built-in radio. Read more about the bike here on Dial a Ride. It turns out that earlier bicycle radios appeared in the 1930s and a more recent detachable bicycle radio was marketed in the 1990s. These are all probably pretty hard to find, but as an alternative, there are also some portable radios that can be attached to an existing bicycle, including the Barbie Bike FM Radioand the Evo Sync AM/FM Handlebar Radio, With LED And Horn.

3. Radio Making Kit

This is the year that I’m going to build my own radio and this Wonderology Snap Plug and Play radio kit seems like the perfect, simple first-time radio-making project. The pieces snap together and according to the product description, it’s appropriate for ages 5 and up. There are plenty of other radio-making kits out there, including an Elenco FM Radio Kit, theElenco Short Wave Radio Kit, theBuild Your Own Working Crystal Radio Lab Kit, and the Tecsun AM Radio Receiver Kit.

4. Wooden Phone Dock that Looks Like a Radio

There are a whole range of products out there that look retro, but are actually brand new and are designed to connect with modern devices like iPhones. The Areaware Decorative Radio Dock looks like a funky wooden radio, but it’s actually a dock for one’s iPhone.

5. Circa 1928 Speakers

I fell in love with the look of these “vintage” speakers that I spotted in the Restoration Hardware catalog (take a look at their website for more retro audio pieces plus numerous other vintage-inspired items, including some that are seemingly pulled from a steam punker’s dreams). According to the catalog copy, “Inspired by a speaker from 1928, the dawn of radio’s golden age,” the cast-metal speakers can be connected via wireless to your phone or mp3 player. Although not nearly as glamorous, there are some other vintage-looking radios and speakers out there that will also connect with your phone, including the Philips Charging Speaker Dock for iPod/iPhone and the Wolverine Retro Table Top Bluetooth Speaker and AM/FM Radio.

6. New Radio Books on Walter Benjamin and Top 40

If you are looking to pick up some scholarly radio tomes, there are two new books that I’m eager to read. Radio Benjamin compiles radio transcripts from scholar Walter Benjamin, who hosted a radio show in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Additionally, Eric Weisbard’s new book, Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music, is worth checking out for its analysis of popular radio genres and their intersections with mainstream music in America. I hope to review both books in the weeks to come. UPDATE (12/17/14): To get more scoop on Eric Weisbard’s book, see my Q&A with him.

7. Betsey Johnson Radio Purse

Last year I found a bunch of radio purses and am adding to that list with this cute hand bag by designer Betsey Johnson.It actually has functional speakers that can plug into your phone or mp3 player so that you can effectively play music out of your purse! Another option is this Vintage Retro Radio Messenger Bag.

8. Antique Radios Curated by the New York Times

In another example of the celebration of all things vintage, the New York Times Store has an entire section devoted to antique radios. These aren’t your standard cast-offs, with some of them priced for thousands of dollars.

9. Space Heater with Built-In Radio

Every year I find a totally random radio item that serves a dual purpose (like the radio toaster and the radio cooler). For 2014, the bizarre appliance, the JNH Lifestyles Infrared Space Heater, Radio and Media Playercombines a space heater with a functioning radio.

10. Countdown to Christmas Radio

This Hallmark decoration from 2013, the North Pole Countdown Radio Tabletop Decoration, looks like a vintage radio, but when you turn the dial you can hear recorded messages that count down to Christmas. It can also be connected to an mp3 player.

11. 2015 Tower Site Calendar

Last, but not least, is Scott Fybush’s annual Tower Site Calendar. The 2015 edition features color photographs of radio towers from all over the United States. Signed and numbered copies are also available.

The post 2014 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fanatics: From Radio in a Jar to Bike Radios appeared first on Radio Survivor.

A new book chronicles “the practices of an activist organization focused on LPFM” during the first low-power licensing window at the turn of the century. Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism is written by Christina Dunbar-Hester, a professor of Journalism and Media Studies in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, where she is also affiliated faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies. She is also a long-time friend of the low-power FM movement.

According to MIT Press,

Despite its origins as a pirate broadcasting collective, the group eventually shifted toward building and expanding regulatory access to new, licensed stations. These radio activists consciously cast radio as an alternative to digital utopianism, promoting an understanding of electronic media that emphasizes the local community rather than a global audience of Internet users.

In this study Dunbar-Hester examines how political beliefs are expressed though people’s engagement with technologies, and offers insights into media policy that are especially relevant as thousands of new LPFM stations go online.

I’ve read some of her earlier scholarship around LPFM and radio (some papers are available online via her website), so I am excited to read this fuller treatise.

The post New Book Chronicles LPFM Activism & Organizing appeared first on Radio Survivor.

I was in a local independent book and magazine shop this weekend when a nicely designed magazine on a display table immediately drew my attention. I had never seen Uppercase Magazine before. But the sleek cover art mixing up a radio with knitting needles as the antenna and a stylized ball of yarn as the speaker called me to pick it up.

Uppercase bills itself as “a magazine for the creative and curious,” and hails from Calgary, Alberta. According to publisher Janine Vangool issue #20 is about broadcasting. In her first page letter to readers she writes, “My broad interpretation of this term includes the sharing of ideas graphically and publicly through posters, social media and public art, and also encompasses amateur radio, graphic novels and collecting vintage advertising posters.” I was sold.

Uppercase #20’s QSL Card Spread

Uppercase is really more of a journal than magazine, published on heavy matte paper, without ads. At $18 this also means it’s not cheap, at least by magazine standards. But because of it’s visual appeal, I’m already finding myself thumbing through it more than an issue of Time or the Atlantic. For the radio, broadcasting or design enthusiast it’s definitely worth checking out.

Here’s a video preview of this issue:

UPPERCASE magazine – issue #20 from uppercasemag on Vimeo.

The post Uppercase Magazine celebrates broadcasting, broadly considered appeared first on Radio Survivor.

• Matthew Collin: Guerrilla Radio: Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio and Serbia’s Underground Resistance

Matthew Collin’s book is a highly charged and highly readable account of the role Serbian pirate station B92 played in the antiwar movement during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s and the Kosovo war in the late 1990s. Based in first-hand accounts with many of the station’s key personalities, it recounts their support of underground (read: banned) music, independent journalism, and various social movements through their use of the radio medium. In the UK Collin’s book can also be found under the title This is Serbia Calling: Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio and Belgrade’s Underground Resistance (http://amzn.to/193nhJe).

• Kate Lacey: Feminine Frequencies: Gender, German Radio, and the Public Sphere, 1923-1945

For anyone interested in the early days of German radio and the central role played by women in broadcasting in both Weimar-era radio, and the radio in the Third Reich, then Kate Lacey’s illuminating study is just the ticket. It provides an in-depth look at the simultaneous emergence of the radio medium entering the private sphere of the home and of women entering the public sphere of workplace social politics.

• Douglas Kahn and Gregory Whitehead, ed.: Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde

A must-read for connoisseurs of sound art, Kahn and Whitehead’s volume assembles a collection of original essays that explore the finely tuned relationships between sound, radio, and avant-garde experimentation to uncover the importance of the aural for understanding the periods of modernism, postmodernism, and postwar experimentalism in the arts. Accompanying these insightful essays are translated gems by such art luminaries as Antonin Artaud and F.T. Marinetti, which help locate each scholarly essay in its contemporary artistic context.

• John Mowitt: Radio: Essays in Bad Reception

John Mowitt explores radio from the standpoint of its place within the history of twentieth-century critical theory. A challengingly fun read, the book understands radio to be a foundational medium for the production and transmission of mass culture. Mowitt thus engages the work of such heavy hitters as Walter Benjamin, Frantz Fanon, Raymond Williams, Theodor Adorno, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre for grasping how radio became a significant metaphor and object of study for a range of critical theoretical approaches, like phenomenology, cultural studies, and existentialism.

• Daina Augaitis and Dan Lander, ed.: Radio Rethink: Art, Sound, and Transmission

Another collection, Augaitis and Lander’s book gathers together twenty-three essays from media scholars, media and performance artists, and radio practitioners to amplify the how and the why of artistic engagement with the radio as medium, and the radio as device.

• Heidi Grundmann and Elisabeth Zimmermann, ed.: Re-Inventing Radio: Aspects of Radio as Art

In a similar vein to Augaitis and Lander’s volume, Heidi Grundmann and Elisabeth Zimmermann from the Kunstradio project out of Vienna, fashion a massive (541 pages!) anthology consisting in scholarly essays, interviews, artist portraits, and project descriptions to move radio forward from its cultural historical role as communications medium, and re-invent it in terms of contemporary artistic possibilities.

The post Even More Radio History Books for the Holidays appeared first on Radio Survivor.

This year I’ve put together an eclectic list of gifts for broadcast, podcast or online radio fan (or nerd). Remember that you give a little gift to Radio Survivor, too, when you buy any of these items–or any product at all–through Amazon using one of our links.

Give a Little Bluetooth

I’ve been using the Samsung HM1700 bluetooth headset not just to make calls, but also to listen to podcasts because it supports music streaming with most smartphones. It’s great for listening while cooking, doing housework, riding public transport or going for a walk because there’s no cord to get tripped up on, and it leaves one ear free so that you’re not totally cut off from what’s going on around you.

A portable bluetooth speaker is the best way to turn your smartphone or tablet into a on-the-go sound system. Cambridge Soundworks’ Oontz Angle is small enough to toss in a backpack without thinking twice, while also delivering above-average sound quality for its size.

Radios for Emergencies and Global Connection

Everyone should have an emergency radio on hand for power and cell service outages. Since batteries eventually run out, a wind-up and solar powered receiver like the C Crane CC Solar Observer is a fantastic choice from a company that makes nice radios to stay updated in almost any circumstance.

A good shortwave radio can provide hours of entertainment and global information, especially when your internet, cable or cell service is on the fritz. The Tecsun PL–660 is a highly regarded receiver that includes world shortwave bands from a company that manufacturers radios for other more well-known brands.

Check out my 2012 list for additional recommendations for radios, headphones and podcasting gear.

Listening and Viewing

WTF: First 100 Episodes – If you missed the first episodes of Marc Maron’s iconic WTF podcast when they were first published, then you missed out on podcast history being made (really). Lucky for the podcast or comedy fan in your life, those first hundred are all available on a DVD for convenient listening.

Comedy Bang Bang: Season 1 – Making the transition from podcast to TV show can’t be easy. But Comedy Bang Bang pulled it off, translating its rollicking free-form improv ’cast into a tight 22-minute show that retains its trademark zaniness and sense of spontaneity without seeming sloppy or stilted. This one doesn’t get released on DVD until January, but you can get instant video downloads right now.

Reads for Listeners

MP3: The Meaning of a Format by Jonathan Sterne – Who thought that the development of an audio format could be so interesting? Admittedly, I’m kind of the target audience, but Sterne, a professor at McGill University, has written an engaging history of the ideas that resulted in the ubiquitous MP3, situating it as a social, not just technological, process.

Radio’s New Wave: Global Sound in the Digital Era, edited by Jason Loviglio and Michelle Hilmes. This book is in many ways an update to 2003’s The Radio Reader, to which I contributed a chapter on the death and resurrection of low-power radio. Radio’s New Wave charts the medium’s evolution in the internet age with contributions from some of the top scholars studying radio today.

Attempting Normal by Marc Maron – This choice features a little more levity than the first two books, albeit punctuated with the popular podcaster’s brutal honesty and cutting wit.

Tasteful Nudes by Dave Hill – Hill is also a podcaster and stand-up, and this book is a collection of frequently hilarious and mostly-autobiographical essays that are steeped more in the absurd, which is an element of Hill’s podcast and stage persona that you’re not always sure is a persona.

The post Eclectic gifts for the radio, podcast and streaming music fan (or nerd) appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Happy Holidays from Radio Survivor (Photo: J. Waits)

Happy Holidays!

Over the past month we’ve been compiling gift suggestions for our radio-obsessed fans. Here’s the complete run-down of ideas for your end of year shopping.

As a bonus, if you make purchases using the Amazon links on Radio Survivor, you’ll be helping to support our efforts as well.

1. Radio Gifts from Whimsical to Erudite: My annual list of gift ideas ranges from novelty items like radio-themed jewelry and a grill with a built-in radio to scholarly tomes about broadcasting. You can get more ideas from my previous lists from 2011,  2010 and 2009.

2. Radios and Podcasting Gear: Paul recently provided some updated suggestions for radio listeners and producers, including radios, headphones, earphones, and a complete line-up of gear for podcasters. For more suggestions, take a look at Paul’s radio and gear gift guides from 2010 and 2011.

3. Emergency Radios and Radio Books: Matthew just posted some great suggestions for emergency radios. His book suggestions from last year are worth investigating as well.

What’s on your wish list?

The post 2012 Radio Survivor Gift Guides appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Chicago’s Q101 was one of the first commercial alternative rock stations, and the first one to bring that format to the Chicago radio starting in 1992. The format and Q101 branding went away on July 15, 2011, when Randy Michaels’ Merlin Media took over the station, flipping it to his FM News format, that was also on in New York City. While Merlins’ FM News went belly up just a year later, Q101 has not returned to the FM airwaves, although there is an online incarnation.

Now there is a book telling the twenty-year history of Q101. We Appreciate Your Enthusiasm: The Oral History of Q101 documents the stories and memories from over 75 former employees, from syndicated shock jock Mancow Muller to former MTV VJ Mark Goodman. Author James VanOsdol was a Q101 DJ himself, and is currently a podcaster. He funded the book with a Kickstarter campaign he started within 24 hours of hearing the news about Q101’s sale to Merlin Media. In what is pretty good time for the publishing industry, just sixteen months later the work is available for sale in paperback and ebook.

I have not yet read the book, but Chicago media blogger Robert Feder gives it a positive review (third item down). He calls it “a riveting, you-are-there account of a Chicago radio treasure.” Feder praises VanOsdol’s work, saying “no one has ever captured the story of a local radio station with as much candor and insight.”

The post The oral history of Chicago’s Q101 hits stores appeared first on Radio Survivor.

In honor of the official start of the holiday shopping season, it’s time for an update to my annual list of radio gift ideas.  If you are making your purchases online, you can help support Radio Survivor by shopping through our Amazon links. Over the years we’ve compiled various lists of recommended radio gear, accessories and books. If you need more shopping inspiration, take a look at the guides that that I put together in 2011,  2010 and 2009. Additionally, be sure to peruse Paul’s list of recommended radio gear and Matthew’s radio book recommendations. Here are our latest additions:

1. Tower Site Calendar 2013: Every year Scott Fybush offers up a new version of this calendar. Full of photographs of tower sites, it’s a must-have for tower-loving radio engineers. Pay a little extra to get the limited edition (50 copies) version, which is hand-signed and hand-numbered.

2. Radio Books: There’s never a shortage of radio books to choose from. One of my recent favorites is Community Radio in the Twenty-First Century (see my review here). This year I also picked up copies of the Images of America book Bay Area Radio and Lee de Forest: King of Radio, Television, and Film as well as the new anthology Radio and Society: New Thinking for an Old Medium.

3. College and Community Radio Gear and Sounds: Many college and community radio stations offer stylish garb and interesting sounds as thank you gifts in exchange for donations. Every year I look forward to the new T-shirt designs and music compilations at KFJC (where I volunteer and DJ). This year’s girlie shirt (designed by illustrator and author Rhode Montijo) is particularly cute. KALX also has some special gear this year in honor of the station’s 50th anniversary.

In terms of music, WFMU‘s holiday music compilation, War on Christmas, is available to folks who donate to the station. You can also pick up a bar of WFMU Miracle Soap, a flexi disc, or a super fancy metal WFMU 45rpm adapter.

4. Emergency Radio: Every year there’s another reminder of why it’s so important to keep an emergency radio close at hand. This fall Hurricane Sandy pummeled the East Coast, knocking out power and leaving many residents reliant on radio for vital news and information. Prepare for future earthquakes, hurricanes, super storms, and doomsday by purchasing a hand-crank or solar-powered radio that can give you access to local AM and FM stations. One choice is the Kaito KA300 , which also includes a digital alarm clock, cell phone charger and flashlight. Another option with similar features is the Etón American Red Cross Weather Radio. Radio Survivor contributor Bob Mason also gave a glowing review of the Etón FR160R Microlink solar-powered radio.

5. Trick Out Your Smart Phone with a Radio Design: As soon as I saw this radio-themed iPhone cover, I knew I had to have it. It resembles an old transistor radio and might fool passers by into thinking that you are glued to an old radio instead of to a modern iPhone. There’s also an iPhone 5 case with a boombox radio design.

6. Radios Built in to Cooking Devices: Wow. Who knew that you could get a cool-looking retro Radio Toaster that also features a built-in FM radio? There’s also the Kalorik Barbecue Grill with Radio and iPod Connection, which has speakers and an amplifier.

7. Radio Jewelry: I’m always excited to see the range of radio jewelry available, including these Old School Retro Red Radio Cufflinks, this pink Radio Tape Recorder Necklace, and this necklace featuring a vintage radio microphone.

8. Cooler with AM/FM Radio: Perfect for the beach or for fall/winter tailgating, the Igloo Cool Fusion 40 Ice Tunes is a rolling insulated cooler with its own AM/FM radio, mp3 connection, and speakers.

Happy Shopping!

The post 2012 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fans appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Board at Belfield FM in Ireland (Photo: J. Waits)

As the calendar turns to November, many of us are starting to think about holiday gift lists. There are always lots of great radio-themed gifts to choose from and books are often at the top of my list.

Earlier this year I was sent a copy of the anthology Community Radio in the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Janey Gordon, the book features an incredible array of scholarly articles about community radio from all over the world (including Britain, the Philippines, Uruguay, the United States, Bangladesh, East Africa, Hungary, South Africa, Laos and China).

Not only does it provide a nice history of community radio (particularly in cultures where community radio is a new endeavor), but it also addresses topical concerns (mobile phones, LPFM, Local Community Radio Act, etc.).

Additionally, I was pleased to see that college radio had good representation in the book. Nick Rubin’s piece, “Music Based Community Radio as Alternative Media,” takes a look at not only the role of college radio in alternative music culture, but also explores how a call for programming changes at WTJU at University of Virginia (which we also wrote about on Radio Survivor in 2010), divided a community. When “proposed changes sparked widespread outrage among WTJU volunteers…and listeners” it became clear that people were afraid that “WTJU would lose its oppositional status” to mainstream culture.

The book concludes with a piece by Janey Gordon, “The Role of University Radio in the Development of Community Radio Stations: A History.” Gordon explores the early beginnings of radio on college campuses and delineates the difference between “campus radio” and “community radio.” She writes, “Campus, college or student radio may be thought of as a radio station running on an educational campus or within the site and premises of that establishment.” Examples of this might include low power AM stations at schools, prisons, and hospitals in the United Kingdom. College radio stations with a “community radio” orientation broadcast to a larger area, perhaps on full power FM (such as 107 Spark FM and Radio LaB 97.1 FM in the UK). Gordon acknowledges that “the United States model of radio broadcasting for the community is somewhat more complex with a greater variety of licences being issued to university based radio stations and with various commercial, public, community and college radio stations all broadcasting from university sites.”

The post Community Radio in the 21st Century offers Comprehensive Look at Radio around the World appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Science fiction author Ray Bradbury died yesterday at the age of 91 and fans are expressing sadness over the loss of this visionary. His career also touched the world of radio, as many of his stories were adapted for both television and radio.

If you’re itching to hear some radio dramatizations of Bradbury’s material, there are several options, including Colonial Theatre on the Air’s interpretations of The Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine. Recently, the radio series Bradbury 13 aired on BBC’s Radio 4 Extra.

Radio buffs should also pick up a copy of Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 in order to see some spot-on predictions about the dangers of personal electronics. In the book, protagonist Guy Montag is married to a woman who blocks out the world by listening to thimble-sized seashell radios that fit in her ears. One notable passage reads:

“His wife stretched on the bed, uncovered and cold, like a body displayed on the lid of a tomb, her eyes fixed to the ceiling by invisible threads of steel, immovable. And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind. The room was indeed empty. Every night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning. There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swum that sea, had not gladly gone down in it for the third time.”

The novel portrays a future in which books are banned. It stands to reason that in this landscape radio and television are not heroic characters, as they are part of the culture which eschews books and literature. Another line from Fahrenheit 451 describes a vomiting radio:

“The train radio vomited upon Montag, in retaliation, a great ton-load of music made of tin, copper, silver, chromium, and brass. The people were pounded into submission; they did not run, there was no place to run; the great air-train fell down its shaft in the earth.”

Each generation expresses fear about new technology and this passage reminds me of anecdotes that my dad shared with me about his parents warning him about listening to too much radio. In turn, he warned me about the dangers of television. And, today, parents fret about the Internet, social networking, and video games.

Yet, I do think that there’s something to be said about life before technology. Like Bradbury, I worry about the isolating power of earbuds, mobile phones, and mp3 players. I fear that we are forgetting how to be alone with our own thoughts and that we are losing the ability to kill time without feeling the need to reach for our cell phones to check email or send a text. So, in his honor, let’s take out our earbuds, have a conversation with the stranger sitting next to us, and take in the sights and sounds that surround us.

The post Farewell to author Ray Bradbury, the man who dreamed up Seashell Radios appeared first on Radio Survivor.

“Imagine working in a homeless shelter,” Fresh Air host Dave Davies began his interview with Flynn and director Paul Weitz, “and finding one day that your father has come in from the street for a bed. That happened to writer Nick Flynn when he was in his twenties. He wrote about it in a memoir that we can translate as Another BS Night in Suck City.”

The story has been turned into a movie released as Being Flynn. NPR wouldn’t even print the actual book title on its website. There readers see the name translated as Another Bulls- – – Night in Suck City.

I contacted Fresh Air producer Danny Miller to ask why he thought the alteration was necessary, and if FCC related concerns were involved.

“The quick answer to your question is: yes, basically given FCC regulations and how they are implemented, we would not use the word ‘bullshit’,” Miller replied. “When it comes to a book or movie title, or a lyric which is being quoted, we will generally indicate to our listeners that we’re changing the language, like our host Dave Davies indicated in the intro to the interview.”

Miller continued:

If it’s a word that comes up in a movie or tv clip, or a song, we will bleep it – a convention that I think all listeners understand.

As to the why: it is to protect stations from FCC fines or other legal challenges.   It is important to understand that if a national program such as Fresh Air includes language which leads to FCC action, it’s the stations which broadcast Fresh Air (not Fresh Air, and not NPR) which are at risk of a fine or a license challenge. Stations trust us not to put them in jeopardy, and we take this issue very seriously.

Fresh Air may be being a bit overcautious here. In fact, the FCC has made it clear that it gives broadcasters wide berth on indecency when it comes to news related stories, plus the benefit of the doubt in defining what is news. In a November 2006 indecency Order, for example, the agency explained its decision not to issue a fine against the CBS Early Show following an interview with a contestant on the Survivor: Vanuatu TV program.

“I knew he was a bullshitter from Day One,” the participant declared during the discussion.

In its exemption decision the FCC recognized “the need for caution with respect to complaints implicating the editorial judgment of broadcast licensees in presenting news and public affairs programming, as these matters are at the core of the First Amendment’s free press guarantee.”

If the FCC regards a conversation about Survivor to be news, surely an NPR discussion of this upcoming movie based on Nick Flynn’s reminiscence is news as well.

To be fair, I understand that Fresh Air may want to err on the side of safety, given the erratic nature of the FCC’s indecency enforcement record. But this is a sad, mediocre kind of caution. We are talking about the adulteration of serious literature here. I read Another Bullshit Night in Suck City in almost a single sitting. Respect for a great writer’s words should override the imagined sensitivities of the public. Over the years, Fresh Air has broadcast programs about slasher movies, pornography, J. Edgar Hoover’s sexuality—you name it. Surely the show’s audience can handle the title of this fine book.

In any event, this is yet another reason to oppose the FCC’s indecency rules, currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court, and which clearly violate the First Amendment rights of broadcasters.

I also contacted NPR about the cleaning up of the Flynn title on NPR’s website, but received no reply.

The post Fresh Air sanitizes title of Nick Flynn memoir; was it necessary? appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Every year we, your humble Radio Survivors, endeavor to help our readers find unique, interesting and appropriate gifts for the radio lovers in their lives (or for yourself).When you order using one of our links to Amazon, you also give a gift to Radio Survivor, helping us pay the bills and keep the site going. It doesn’t cost you a single cent more.

• Jennifer’s gift guide includes a hot calendar, radio jewelry, radio lit, along with some cool actual radios.
• This year Matthew suggests eight great history books about radio broadcasting, covering everything from the culture and history of public radio to sex and indecency in broadcasting.
• For my gift guide this year I recommend some really great headphones, an inexpensive USB audio interface to enhance your online listening as well as my desert island radio. I have owned or used every single one of these items, so they come mediageek approved.

The post The Radio Survivor Holiday Gift Guides appeared first on Radio Survivor.

If you are a total, gob smacked radio fan like me, you never tire of reading history books about the subject. Here are some of my faves:

Anthony Rudell’s Hello everybody! The Dawn of American Radio is a wonderful introduction not only to the beginnings of American radio, but to the culture of the 1920s and early 1930s. You get a front row seat for a unique cast of characters: Aimee Semple McPherson, medicine crackpot John Romulus Brinkley, Father John Coughlin, crooner Rudy Vallee—the whole shebang overseen by a shy Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover. The narrative concludes with the Roosevelt fireside chat years.

Warning to policy wonks (I include myself in this category): Hello everybody! doesn’t get very deep into the regulatory history of the era, which is why it makes a great gift for your non-policy wonk radio loving friend.

Susan Douglas’ Listening In: Radio And The American Imagination is the best single volume discussion of radio in the United States, period. Its witty, compelling narrative challenges you with a fascinating assessment of the cultures that radio has promulgated, up to and including free form and talk radio. No surprise that Douglas is particularly strong about the politics of gender—given her equally wonderful study, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media.

Listening In‘s sections on the emergence of audience research and the rise of Hi Fi radio are particularly strong. This book is a must have for any serious history of radio collection.

Jesse Walker’s Rebels in the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America takes you all the way back to the wireless morse code boys of the Progressive Era, and lands you down with the pirate radio crowd of the 1980s and 90s. I’ll quote one of the book’s first blurbers:

“Rebels on the Air is a joyous, smart, lucid, hilarious, critical and engaging celebration of community based, non-commercial radio in the United States. Jesse Walker vividly captures the people, their visions and achievements, their friends and enemies—all in a book that is great fun to read.”

That was me who said that (back when I was famous, sort of). The tome lays it all out from a libertarian perspective, and includes extensive coverage of community radio and the Pacifica stations through the turbulent 1990s (borrowing just a tad for the early period from my tome Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network). There’s a particularly strong chapter about grassroots radio around the world. Ten years after its publication, Rebels is still a great read.

Mark Fisher’s Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution that Shaped a Generation is a smart, engaging history of commercial radio from the 1940s onward. It takes you through the formative days of Top 40 and how radio transformed itself at the height of the television era. Something gets all the right connections between the youth culture and race, and pays close attention to important technological shifts like the invention of the transistor; the book also has an exquisitely dishy chapter about the payola scandals of the late 1950s.

Significantly for a Radio Survivor reader, Fisher’s book is the first study to successfully integrate a Pacifica station (WBAI in New York City) into a larger history of broadcasting—a task meticulously avoided by just about every mainstream scholar thus far.

NPR lovers: Jack Mitchell’s Listener Supported: The Culture and History of Public Radio is the book for you. It is a compassionate and critical look at the subject that gives you a broad overview from an insider’s perspective. I especially love the opening chapter about how 1960s era college radio managers turned the Corporation for Public Television into the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and won the funding that made NPR possible.

Dirty Discourse: Sex and Indecency in Broadcasting is authored by that dynamic scholarly duo, Robert Hilliard and Michael Keith. It’s a  great retelling of America’s ongoing effort to control broadcast potty talk, going all the way back to the suppression of Mae West (I still think that NBC should apologize to her). George Carlin and Pacifica vs. FCC gets the full treatment. A nice monograph on an important subject; still a big deal, in case you didn’t notice.

Bill Crawford and Gene Fowler’s Border Radio: Quacks, Yodelers, Pitchmen, Psychics, and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves is just a great yarn about all those miscreants on the Mexican border, from J. Romulus Brinkley to Wolfman Jack. You also get to meet Texas politico W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel, Patsy Montana (“I want to be a cowboy’s sweetheart”), and self-proclaimed cancer curer Norman Baker of Muscatine Mississippi’s KTNT (“Know the Naked Truth”).

I’m not sure I’d want to meet most of these folks in person, with the exception of The Wolfman. But I sure love reading about them in books like Border Radio.

Finally, if you know anyone who is planning to start a pirate radio station in the near future, please buy them a copy of Sue Carpenter’s 40 Watts From Nowhere. The book is sine qua non for anyone who aspires to run any kind of community-style radio signal, as far as I’m concerned, because it shows how different said institution looks from the bottom up (a volunteer) and the top down (a manager).

40 Watts chronicles Carpenter’s experiences founding and running two pirates: KPBJ in San Francisco and the far more successful KBLT in Los Angeles through the 1990s. Spoiler alert: the message of the book is that Ya Gotta Have Rules, even if you’re a rebel. Attention all media anarchists: Read 40 Watts so you’ll know what you’re getting into.

The post Great radio history books for the holidays appeared first on Radio Survivor.

If you are getting a jump on holiday shopping on this Cyber Monday, then it’s a perfect time to start sleuthing out radio-related gifts for your friends and family. While you’re at it, you can also help support Radio Survivor by shopping through our Amazon links. Since radio gifts never go out of style, you can take a look at the guides that we put together in 2010 and 2009. Here are our latest additions:

1. 2012 Tower Site Calendar: Call it porn for the radio geek in your life. Scott Fybush’s latest calendar features images of transmitter sites from all over North America.

2. Radio Jewelry: There are a variety of choices, including a silver vintage radio charm, microphone cufflinks, and HAM radio cufflinks.

3. Radio Lit: If you want to find some radio literature, there are some great options, including Michael Keith’s tome The Radio Station, Eighth Edition: Broadcast, Satellite and Internet. For tinkerers, there’s 22 Radio and Receiver Projects for the Evil Genius.

4. A Kids’ Clock Radio: I think it’s important to get kids listening to radio early, so this LEGO Alarm Clock Radio is a no-brainer for Lego-obsessed school kids. If you have a girly girl on your gift list, the Lego radio also comes in pink and there are also a number of sweet Hello Kitty clock radios and boomboxes.

5. Stylish Gear and Underground Sounds from Your Favorite Non-Commercial Radio Station: Some of the best radio-themed apparel can be found by perusing the webstores of your favorite local college and community radio stations. KCSB at UC Santa Barbara is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and they have a special commemorative T-shirt. I’m also quite fond of the new KFJC girlie T-shirt featuring a retro cat eyeing a fish bowl record player. Non-commercial stations are also a great source for intriguing music compilations, including KDVS’s new cassette-of-the-month club subscription, featuring both musicians from the Davis/Sacramento area as well as “out of town” artists.

6. Emergency Radio to Keep You Informed During a Disaster: It’s becoming increasingly clear that terrestrial radio is a vital source for information during a natural disaster. Heroic stations have guided citizens safely through emergencies when their communities have been hit by earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Hand-crank radios, solar-powered radios, and weather radios are good tools to have in your emergency kit. One option is a Solar-Powered Radio and Cell Phone Charger, another is the Voyager Solar/Dynamo Emergency Radio, which also includes shortwave and weather radio options. There’s even a shower radio that has a built-in weather radio in case you want to keep apprised while lathering up.

7. A modern clock radio: There are all sorts of clock radios that combine features from both smart phones and the classic AM/FM radio technology. Try the Dual Alarm Clock Radio for iPhone/iPod with AM/FM presets.

8. Build Your Own Radio Kit: Every self-respecting electronics nerd built their own radio back in the day. Share this tradition with your favorite youngster. One DIY kit is the Snap Circuits FM Radio.

9. Cool Tabletop Radio: There are some beautiful tabletop radios out there, including some that are focused on AM/FM radio (like this Crosley Solo Radio), satellite radio, and Internet Radio.

10. Radio Movies: I’m a big fan of “djs in peril” films and one of the best is Play Misty for Me. If you want something nostalgic, there’s Radio Days and if you want something educational, there’s the Ken Burn’s documentary Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio.

If you need more tips, take a look at our previous posts:

Paul’s Recommended Radios for Holiday Gifty Time

2010 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fans

Top Holiday Gifts for Radio Lovers

The post 2011 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fans appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from Radio Survivor!

As the shopping season gets even more frenetic, we wanted to help simplify things for you by sharing a few of the radio-themed gift guides that we’ve put together for our readers over the past year.

On these lists you’ll find radios, books, toys, accessories, DVDs, radio shows, and other items that might appeal to you or to your radio-obsessed friends and family.

And, remember that when you purchase items on Amazon through links on Radio Survivor, we get a small referral bonus, which is a lovely gift for us.

I’m still waiting to get that build-your-own-radio kit, myself…What’s on your list?

Paul’s Recommended Radios for Holiday Gifty Time

2010 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fans

Top Holiday Gifts for Radio Lovers

The post Radio Survivor’s Holiday Gift Guide Round-Up appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Happy Cyber Monday! If you’re starting your holiday shopping, don’t forget radio-related gifts. Last year I wrote a handy guide outlining the most perfect radio-themed gifts for the different types of people on your list. That list is still a great starting point, so this time around I’m just going to add a few new additions. If you shop Amazon through Radio Survivor, we’ll also get a referral bonus, so you’ll be helping to support our mission here as well. Of course, don’t let that stop you from supporting your local, small businesses too.

Here are my suggestions of gifts for radio lovers-2010 style:

1. 2011 Tower Site Calendar: This is the 10th edition of this calendar, which features photographs of towers, including radio towers. Put together by Scott Fybush, an associate of the radio tower loving Garrett Wollman (our very first Radio Obsessive); this calendar would be a great gift for radio engineers and fans of radio architecture.

2. Areaware SSKMRS Magno Model 1 Sustainable Personal Radio: I saw one of these gorgeous wooden radios in a local store this weekend and was in love. This would be the perfect gift for design-minded eco-conscious radio fans. It’s made from sustainable wood and a percentage of the sale goes to sustainable forest replanting.

3. Gear from Your Favorite Local Non-commercial Radio Station: One of the best purchases that you can make is gear from your local non-commercial radio station. Whether it’s a cool T-shirt, compilation CD or LP, baseball cap, fly swatter, or a shot glass; supporting local radio is a very good thing. Might I suggest the brand new KFJC zip-up hoodie? Or you could send some funds to WFMU in order to get your name on a balloon attached to station manager Ken Freedman during their Lift-Off event next week.

4. Fisher Price Build & Fix – Radio Repair Toy: I was excited to see an episode of the kids’ TV show Handy Mandy in which the protagonist heads over to a radio station to do some repairs. So, you can get your kids into the groove of understanding radio’s relavance by picking up this toy radio repair kit for them.

5. SportSyncRadio: Earlier this month I wrote about various radio options for sports fans who want to listen to a radio broadcast while watching a live event on television. This stand-alone radio is an all-in-one solution.

6. Another option for synchronizing radio with live sports is the Griffin Technology RadioShark AM / FM Desktop Radio with time-shift recording, which can also be used to record radio.

7. 40 Watts from Nowhere : A Journey into Pirate Radio: Every time a new pirate radio station appears on the scene, I’m reminded of this fascinating first-person account by Sue Carpenter. In this book she eloquently outlines the challenges of running a station based on anarchistic principles. You can read Matthew’s review of the book here.

8. Hello Kitty Boombox Wallet: I love that radio imagery is making its way into fashion and this Hello Kitty wallet adorned with a radio boombox is adorable.

9. Rhinestone Old School Boombox Gold Belt Buckle: This belt buckle is over-the-top, with its gilded boombox and is a great gift choice for radio fans who embrace hip hop culture and fashion or for anyone who wants to add a bit of glamor to their life.

10. Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound: There are lots of great radio books out there, but “reality” radio doesn’t get much ink. Here’s a recent book full of essays written by documentary radio practitioners, from Ira Glass to audio performance artists.

The post 2010 Holiday Gift Guide for Radio Fans appeared first on Radio Survivor.

An NPR bookshelf (source: NPR)

National Public Radio published an interesting blog post this week on how it handles books. This is a subject of interest to many people. NPR receives over 100 books a day for consideration.

So how can you get your magnum opus on All Things Considered? As you might guess, NPR’s Lori Grisham insists that there are no “hard and fast” rules to success in this area. But there appear to be some to be some soft and slow ones. Here they are:

1. Figure out what some NPR reporter really likes

Attention scholars of antiquity, get thy books to Neal Conan.

“I have an interest in ancient history, so we do a lot of ancient history,” Conan told Grisham, which is why he interviewed Adrian Goldsworthy in September about his book Antony and Cleopatra .

“I know Goldsworthy’s work well. I’ve read both his biography of Caesar and his book on the Fall of the Roman Empire–and we’ve tried to get him on the show in the past. Goldsworthy is a wonderful story teller, a quality that helps a lot in a live radio program.”

So if you already listen to NPR, start listening to various reporters for a sense of what really bakes their cookies. Then contact the right one with your recipe.

2. Pitch the book’s potential as an audio draw

Grisham writes:

A book might catch NPR’s attention if someone thinks it would make a strong audio story. An example is Susan Stamberg ‘s interview with playwright Harold Pinter’s wife, Lady Antonia Fraser about her book Must You Go? My Life With Harold Pinter .

“She’s a wonderful writer. I’ve interviewed her in the past and I knew she was a good talker,” said Stamberg. “In addition, I lost my own husband three years ago and what she did was basically create a memoir of their life together,” she said. “It very much connected with me.”

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to get the message here. When you send your book to NPR, emphasize your skills (if you have them) as a storyteller. Maybe even include an audio clip.

3. Follow NPR Books

Aside from the fact that it gets about one million visits a month, NPR Books isn’t a bad place to hang out, with lots of book related features and reviews. You probably also want to follow the reviewers. Heller McAlpin regularly reviews books for NPR, and his posts can be found on the NPR Books pages.

McAlpin also writes for The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and The San Francisco Chronicle. It stands to reason that if you want your book on NPR, you might want to get his attention.

Here is some less helpful advice that I offer because I am a cynic.

4. Be Michele Norris

NPR’s Michele Norris is the only author in existence who has managed to get her memoir on all four of NPR’s big shows: Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, and Tell Me More.

“Now is a good time for NPR to formulate a policy on how to handle future staff books,” NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard concluded after an investigation of Norris’ good fortune. “Such a policy, making clear that NPR employees should be treated the same as other authors, will go a long way toward enhancing credibility and showing that NPR isn’t favoring its authors and artists over others.”

5. Be famous already

“A book might get selected if the release is likely to make a splash in the book world,” Grisham writes. “This occurred when Washington Post writer Bob Woodward’s book, Obama Wars, made news in September.”

So try to be Bob Woodward or his equivalent if you can.

Is there anything you shouldn’t do? Yes. Don’t bother sending your book to every part of NPR.

“Some publishers will send the exact same book to every department,” NPR mail room staffer Ernesto Permodo told Grisham. “And it ends up on the free shelf in a week or so.”

The post Three strategies for getting your book on National Public Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

DJs Mona Lott and Tony DuShane at KFJC. Photo Courtesy Tony DuShane

On Radio Survivor we tend to talk more about what it means to be a radio listener than what it’s like to be behind the scenes as a radio DJ.

I’m one of those serial DJs who hasn’t been able to shake off the lure of hitting the airwaves year after year in order to both learn about new and obscure music, but also to share my love of music with others.

In an interview that I did recently with community radio DJ and Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk author Tony DuShane, I was struck by the importance that radio (and music) has played in his life and think that he speaks for many long-time DJs when he says:

“It’s an addiction. I have to DJ. There’s a difference when DJing at clubs and bars. When you’re DJing to FM airwaves, you’re DJing into space. There’s no feeling like it. It’s like inviting people over and playing records and talking about the records. Except your friends are in range of a transmitter. There could be five. There could be 5,000.”

For me, being on the microphone and the ritual of doing a radio show brings with it a surprising sense of calm, even though the minutes before my show are always fraught with panic about what to play first.

So, all of you DJs out there, what is it that keeps you coming back week after week?

The post Radio Addiction: A DJ's Perspective appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Radio's Hidden Voice

In light of the 70th anniversary of the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System’s (IBS) annual conference last weekend, it’s a good time to reflect on the college radio pioneers who rarely get mentioned in radio history discussions.

My fascination with the early days of college radio began when I started diving into the history of the radio station at my alma mater, Haverford College. Although Haverford’s first radio station, WABQ, drew much press and attention during its short run from 1923 to 1927; few people outside of the college are aware of the triumphs of this student-built station that was for a time the most powerful college radio station in the United States.

So, it was with great interest that I sought out Hugh Richard Slotten’s 2009 book Radio’s Hidden Voice: The Origins of Public Broadcasting in the United States.

In the book he points out that,

“Radio stations at universities were particularly important because they pioneered some of the earliest experiments with radio in the United States and they played a key role in the establishment of an alternative, noncommercial, public service model for broadcasting.”

Also of interest to me is Slotten’s acknowledgment that college radio faced competition from commercial stations way back in the 1920s. He writes,

“As early as 1922, President Jardine at Kansas State College wrote to a colleague about his fears that commercial interests were actively ‘trying to eliminate’ college radio stations.”

It’s not surprising, considering the huge growth of radio in the United States in 1922. According to Slotten, on January 1, 1922 there were only 28 licensed broadcast stations in the U.S. This number soared to 570 by December 1, 1922.

In the book, there’s a big emphasis on the importance of stations at land-grant universities, many of which offered extension courses and home study courses over the radio airwaves (particularly in the 1920s) for residents in rural areas. Slotten points out that by the late 1920s there was even more competition for space on the radio dial and that many stations were forced to share frequencies and commercial stations seemed to be favored in the Federal Radio Commission’s decisions surrounding assignments.

In order to gain more insight into his research into the early days of educational radio in the United States, I spoke with Hugh Slotten over email. In our conversation he talks about how he became interested in college radio, explains why much of college radio’s early history has been unwritten, and offers up his take on why pinpointing the “first college radio station” is such a challenge.

Jennifer Waits: When did you begin researching the history of radio and what sparked your interest in educational radio?

Hugh Slotten: I especially got interested in the history of the early university stations after I wrote my first book on broadcasting.  That book dealt with technical standards and the role of engineers in the early regulation of radio and television.  I realized while doing the research for that book of the importance of these early university stations.  It seemed clear that there was an important early history that needed to be uncovered.  It was also clear that their history was tied closely to the early history of government policy.  Because I attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a graduate student, I was also aware that these stations were some of the first in the country (WHA at the UW-Madison).

Jennifer: I’m amazed that you’ve uncovered so much about the early days of educational radio. Why do you think this history has been largely unexplored?

Hugh: I think it has been ignored especially because the winners in the battle that occurred early on (between the large commercial networks and the small, noncommercial stations) have tended to write the history.  The standard histories have focused on the winners, who portrayed the “American System” of commercial radio operated by large networks as inevitable (the best system possible).

The records of most of the earliest stations have also been lost (in general).  But I was able to find much information in university and college archives about the educational stations.  This wasn’t easy, so that would help explain why the early history of these stations has not been explored.

Jennifer: There’s a great deal of conflicting information about who can rightfully claim to be the “first” college radio station in the U.S. In your opinion, which station was the first?

Hugh: It depends on the criteria you use to figure this out.  They didn’t give “broadcast” station licenses until after WWI.  There clearly were experiments going on as early as the late 1890s with radio or wireless at universities (wireless telegraphy).  The federal government didn’t officially start to keep track of stations until 1913.  People were operating “stations” at universities and colleges before then but they were more like amateur operators (and not voice transmissions expect for a few exceptions).

The first licenses were not for “broadcasting” because this didn’t exactly exist as a separate concept until after WWI.  I had a researcher look up all the university and college station licenses from before WWI and 1920 (published in an official register starting in 1913) …Interestingly, one of the earliest licensed stations at a small college was a station at Beloit College.

The University of Wisconsin was one of the first university stations to broadcast voice transmissions.  It also continued to operate during WWI (the other ones were forced to shut down).  I think that is why it claims to be the earliest continuously operated broadcast station.  But you see that it depends on the specific criteria you use.

Chess Match at WABQ in the 1920s Photo courtesy of Haverford College Archives, HCHC photographs

Jennifer Waits: Why do you think that land-grant university stations were “more important” than stations at other types of universities?

Hugh: Most of the earliest stations were at the larger state universities.  During the 1920s when “broadcasting” took off, things were different (lots of smaller schools had stations too).

I focused on the state university stations especially in my book, but I think more could be done with the stations at smaller schools and private universities.  The state university focus on extension education (especially using radio for agricultural extension) is very important.  It provides a larger justification and a larger source of support for these stations (state support).

Jennifer: Your book is concerned with educational radio being a precursor to today’s public broadcasting in the United States. From that perspective, how do you feel about the trend in recent years for some independent college radio stations to turn more and more of their day over to programming from public broadcasting companies?

Hugh: Actually, I wasn’t aware of that.  I know there has always been a tension been smaller independent, noncommercial stations and stations connected to the national public broadcasting system.  Local interests clearly suffer when national networks became dominant, but I know that it has always been difficult for small, independent stations to survive.  Your discussion of the recent history of the Haverford station seems to underscore this problem.

Jennifer: I’ve been doing a lot of research about the history of college radio at Haverford College. From what I’ve read, their station was unique in the 1920s in that it was built entirely by undergraduate students. They ultimately sold off their station at the end of 1926 to a commercial station in Philadelphia. Have you run across similar stories of stations from the 1920s that were student endeavors?

Hugh: Students played important roles at all of these stations (larger state universities too).  But at the state universities, faculty always seemed to have oversight.  Often, the stations were tied to existing extension divisions too.  Your research on the Haverford station seems to show that the smaller colleges were a bit different–faculty and staff did not seem to have as much oversight (students seemed to be more independent).

Jennifer: Have you ever been a college radio DJ?

Hugh: No.  I went to Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana (another Quaker school).  My brother was a DJ there in the early 1980s, but I wasn’t.

Jennifer: Are you a fan of college radio today? What are your favorite stations?

Hugh: Since I’m in New Zealand, I don’t get to listen to stations over the air in the US (although I am in the US fairly often).  I do listen on the internet sometimes.  When I’m back in the US, I’m usually either in Washington, D.C. doing research or visiting relatives in Carlisle, PA.  In Carlisle, I do listen to the Dickinson College station sometimes.  Also, the Messiah College station is available, and I also enjoy hearing that station.

Jennifer: Is there anything else you’d like to share about your radio research?

Hugh: I did see your discussion of the early years of the Haverford station.  That was very interesting, especially about the international chess playing, which I didn’t know about.  Here is a link to a great early photo of students at Radcliffe using a radio station (or radio equipment)…It does show that some women were involved in this early period (1922).

The post College Radio's Hidden History appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Prominent historian and activist Howard Zinn passed away last week on January 27, 2010, at the age of 87 years old. Best known for his book A People’s History of the United States, which has sold almost two million copies to date, Zinn wrote history from the “bottom-up.”  I had the pleasure of seeing Zinn in person in San Francisco last year during his Voices of A People’s History event, a tour that recruited actors and actresses to read excerpts from Zinn’s book, such as Tecumsah’s Speech of the Osages, Mary Ellen Lease’s Wall Street Owns the Country, and Vito Russo’s Why We Fight. In honor of Zinn’s memory, in this article I will be listing some audio files of Zinn speaking, some of my favorite Zinn books, and some biographical information to anyone that might be interested in learning more about such an amazing individual.

Listening to history

Zinn’s Artists in a Time of War is an overview of the history of the United States and features Zinn discussing a number of important themes and events, such as patriotism in modern times and the Spanish-American War. LearnOutLoud.com also hosts a sizable amount of Zinn audio files, which can be found here. Another possible method that I feel doesn’t get enough attention is looking into audio CDs and/or tapes of some of Zinn’s books, such as A Peoples History of the United States, on CD.

Bottom-up history

As I mentioned earlier, Zinn was well-known as a historian for writing bottom-up histories and for popularizing the field. Each of the books that I will list, with the exception of Howard Zinn’s biographies, fits this description.

1)A People’s History of the United States: This may seem obvious, but, if you haven’t read it yet, I strongly suggest that you look into it. It’s easily Zinn’s best-known work, and it will at least provide you with a decent background in U.S. history.

2) Voices of a People’s History: This work is generally considered a followup to a People’s History of the United States and contains a number of the first-hand accounts mentioned in Zinn’s more popular work, although the former works better for establishing a historical background.

3) You Can’t Be Neutral On A Moving Train: Easily one of my favorite Zinn books. This autobiography by Zinn is absolutely fantastic and provides a great personal history in general as well as an interesting perspective on U.S. history since the mid-1920s.

4) Postwar America (1945-1971): This book truly opened my eyes in that it forced me to reconsider all of the history that I learned about from this period in school. I’m rather fond of Jack Greene’s description of the book, which was included in the editor’s forward and calls the book “a stringing indictment of the dominant groups within American society for their failure to live up to the principles on which this nation was founded, a relentless and probing revelation of the glaring discrepancies between the rhetoric of American liberalism and the facts of American life in foreign affairs, social organization, corporate behavior, race relations, the administration of justice, and the tolerance of dissent.” Honestly, although A People’s History motivated me to study history and definitely helped me to think more critically, Postwar America might actually be my favorite historical Zinn work.

5) Passionate Declarations: Basically a small collection of essays written by Zinn covering a broad range of topics. I especially enjoyed Zinn’s arguments regarding human nature which he links to warfare, stating, “History is full of warfare, one cannot find an era free of it; this must mean that it comes out of something deep in human nature, something biological, a drive, an instinct for violent aggression. This logic is widespread in modern thought, in all classes of people, whether highly educated or uneducated. And yet, it is almost certainly wrong. And, furthermore, it’s dangerous.”

6) SNCC: The New Abolitionists: Zinn’s account of SNCC’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s is particularly interesting because he actually spent a significant amount of time traveling with the organization and experiencing many of the events that he describes first-hand.

The life of Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn was born in 1922 in a poor area in Brooklyn, New York, to two poor Jewish immigrants. Truly growing up at the start of modern times, Zinn watched as his father struggled with a number of temporary jobs and his mother worked tirelessly towards the well-being of the family. As Zinn became increasingly class-conscious he began to hate the notion that one could become rich in America simply by working hard, noting (in his autobiography) that his family had no refrigerator, shower, radio, or telephone during most (if not all) of his childhood.

Zinn became a self-proclaimed radical in 1940 after attending a nonviolent demonstration at Times Square and being beaten by policemen on horseback. Regardless, later that year, Zinn began working at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, which, as he began to notice large discrepancies in the treatment towards the African-American employees, strengthened Zinn’s views on class consciousness and race. Zinn joined the Army Air Corps in 1943 and, most notably, was ordered to assist in the bombing of a small French town called Royan to allegedly rid the area of some German troops, although the incident also resulted in the deaths of roughly 350 French civilians. Royan drastically influenced Zinn’s views on war, which is extremely apparent in his Postwar America book with his discussion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Upon his return to the United States, Zinn married the woman that he had been seeing before the war (Roslyn) and enrolled at NYU with the help of the GI Bill. Struggling to support his growing family, Zinn also began working as a night-shift worker in a warehouse and as a part-time instructor at Upsala College. The hardships that Zinn and his family were forced to endure, particularly with regard to their residence in a low-income housing project, further strengthened his views on class consciousness and race.

In 1956 Zinn and his family relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, so that Zinn could accept a teaching position as the chair of the history and social studies departments at Spelman College, which was, at the time, an all-female, all-African American institution. Immediately encountering racism while looking for a place to live, Zinn began asking his students to write down their first memory of racial prejudice . Touched by the responses to his inquiry, Zinn proposed the formation of a Spelman Social Science Club to advocate social chance in the area, soon becoming the group’s formal teacher adviser. The group’s mission soon began to focus around the issue of desegregation, which eventually, after a lot of work, led to the formal desegregation of the Atlanta library system.

In 1963 Zinn joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”) for a early voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama. Fascinated by the attitudes and hard work of these “youngsters,” Zinn wrote a first-hand account on the group titled SNCC: The New Abolitionists which focused on “SNCC people in action” and “the quality of their contribution to American civilization.” Zinn’s important position within SNCC led to some (to be blunt) damning attacks on the federal government, particularly with their seeming inability to protect civil rights workers from violence and torture during the movement, much of which can be found in a chapter titled “I Want To Know: Which Side Is The Federal Government On?” (based on a line that was forcibly omitted from John Lewis’ speech in Washington, DC).

Zinn’s involvement with SNCC has led some individuals to distrust his work as too biased, claiming that he should be more objective in writing historical accounts. However, Zinn seemed to hate the notion of “objectivity,” stating that it is “neither possible nor desirable.” Specifically,

It’s not possible because all history is subjective, all history represents a point of view. History is always a selection from an infinite number of facts and everybody makes the selection differently, based on their values and what they think is important. Since it’s not possible to be objective, you should be honest about that. Objectivity is not desirable because if we want to have an effect on the world, we need to emphasize those things which will make students more active citizens and more moral people.

Well, I’ve rambled on for quite a bit, so I’ll end with my favorite Howard Zinn quote. Thank you for taking a moment to join me in mourning the loss of such an amazing individual.

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history of not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

The post Listening to Howard Zinn appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Here are some options. To see images of these gifts, just click the triangular up and down buttons at the bottom of the carousels:

For the Techy Teen: Build Your Own AM/FM Radio Kit

Kids just aren’t making their own radios like they used to. Buck that trend by getting your kid, niece, nephew or favorite teen one of these.

For the Kids: Hello Kitty Clock Radio

I say, get the kids listening to radio at the youngest age possible.

For Lovers of Retro Design, but with All the Modern Features: Crosley Turntable with CD Player and AM/FM Tuner

I’m always drooling over the beautifully designed Crosley turntables with all of the modern acoutrements. This particular model reminds me of an antique radio that we had in my house when I was a kid.

For Those of Us in Earthquake Country: Solar Powered Portable Radio

Everyone needs to have one of these in their emergency kit. You can recharge the radio by using the hand-crank as well.

For Mom and Dad: Shower Radio

Oh my god…I had no idea they still made shower radios. For that reason alone, this made the list. Just think, you can catch the news, weather and traffic in the comfort of your own shower.

For Time-Shifting Radio Lovers: Digital Recorder with mp3 player and AM/FM tuner

With this cool device, you can record radio much like you would use TiVo to record television.

For Radio Nostalgia Buffs: Antique Radio

I grew up in a house full of usable antiques, including old radios and phonographs. They don’t make things like they used to, so it’s always fun to seek out vintage pieces. Your local antique store and eBay are full of gems, including this crazy vintage space age-style Sputnik radio from the 1960s.

For Radio Historians: Empire of the Air DVD

This lauded Ken Burns documentary recounts the early days of radio.

For Bookish Alterna-Radio Types: Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America

This is a great book for those who are interested in reading about some of the creative characters behind various non-commercial radio stations.

For High Design Lovers: Antique Style Radio

This would just look so cool on the shelf.

For Non-Commercial Radio Supporters: CDs, LPs, Tshirts, etc. from their Favorite Radio Station

College, community, and public radio stations are always in need of your cash….and they often have really cool promotional items that you can pick up as gifts. Might I shamelessly plug KFJC’s 50th Anniversary LP to you? Or perhaps a cute girlie T-shirt?

For Terrestrial Radio Fans with Bad Reception: Internet Radio Receiver

I Love this idea. Instead of listening to your favorite radio stations through your computer, you can use this dedicated Internet radio. It’s perfect for places like San Francisco where FM radio reception is often dodgy, especially for the college radio stations that I listen to. It’s also got Pandora built in to in if you end up bypassing the bounty of streaming terrestrial stations.

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Kill the Music

I love reading stories about radio and every time I run across a college radio mention in a book, my interest in piqued. In the months to come I’m going to work on compiling a list of college radio “must reads,” from the academic to the autobiographic. My first pick: Kill the Music.

Kill the Music: The Chronicle of a College Radio Idealist’s Rock and Roll Rebellion in an Era of Intrusive Morality and Censorship is a new book by Michael Plumides that in part looks back at his time in South Carolina in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he was a DJ at college radio station WUSC-FM.

In the book he gives an interesting glimpse of the student radio scene (including staff member drama) at a particular point in history.

The focus of the story also hinges on his time as the owner of the 4808 club, the site of an infamous incident at a GWAR show involving accusations of obscenity on the one hand and censorship on the other. I recently interviewed Michael about the book and about his time in college radio and here’s a choice excerpt from our chat in which he talks about the first college radio station where he worked:

Jennifer Waits: Tell me a bit about the first station where you DJ’d and when you were there?

Michael Plumides: The WLOZ-FM station, originally broadcast from UNCW on 91.3 (now public radio WHQR’s frequency) before being shut down by administrators in 1983 because of a drug scandal. Supposedly, the student broadcasters called out to their dope smoking customers on-air, using code language to indicate that certain packages had arrived. The death knell came when a deejay took a bong hit while broadcasting.

In the mid-eighties, WLOZ returned as “cable radio station,” requiring a special hookup to your cable TV. You had to go to Radio Shack and buy this coaxial antennae device to rig to your receiver. Needless to say, we had a deeply disturbed following. I was in on the “Cable FM” incarnation (90.9) in 1985 and 1986, where I acquired my first FCC license, and then I transferred back to USC. For a time in the late ’90s, WLOZ broadcast an extremely weak signal on 89.1 FM that could more or less only be heard on campus. That station ceased functioning in 2001. I understand they’re now a net broadcast.

In future posts I’ll share some books about college radio history and another personal narrative about college radio in the 1990s.

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