The Radio Survivors return with a new podcast episode! Jennifer reports on her visits to four college radio stations in New York state in November, 2022. Part of a longtime project to document radio station field trips, these recent tours are her first since 2019. As COVID-19 restrictions have loosened, stations are largely back to normal operations, with many on an upswing, with more active participants. Jennifer also shares some radio history tidbits, as each of the stations that she visited has fascinating back stories. At Union College, students began broadcasting music over amateur radio in 1920. A trip to the Union College archives was like a dream for our resident college radio historian.

The post Podcast #329: New York College Radio Tours appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On the show this week, we explore one of our favorite topics: college radio history. Our guest, Andreas Preuss, just completed a multi-faceted project about student radio station WRAS at Georgia State University in Atlanta for his master’s thesis: Left of the Dial: Right on the Music: 50 Years of Georgia State FM Radio. We dig into various aspects of the station’s past, as well as Preuss’ interesting path to this project, having worked in college radio in the past as well as in commercial media for decades.

• College radio station WRAS-FM at Georgia State University
• Left of the Dial: Right on the Music: 50 Years of Georgia State FM Radio (MA thesis)
• From R.E.M. to GPB, A Student Documents the Bittersweet History of College Radio Powerhouse WRAS (Saporta Report)
• Radio Survivor coverage of WRAS/GPB programming takeover and protests circa 2014-2015
• Tulane University radio station WTUL-FM in New Orleans
• Shortwave radio station WRNO (Wikipedia)
• WRNO Worldwide website
• Vanderbilt University’s college radio station WRVU
• Katherine Rye Jewell website
• Podcast #244: Exploring the So-Called ‘Golden Age’ of College Radio (with guest Katherine Jewell)
• Podcast #164: College Radio and the Culture Wars (with guest Katherine Jewell)
• WPRB-FM at Princeton University
• College Radio Watch: WPRB Launches History Site
• Jennifer Waits’ 2012 field trip report from visit to WRAS-FM
• Jennifer Waits’ 2016 field trip report from visit to WRPB-FM

The post Podcast #322 – College Radio History at WRAS appeared first on Radio Survivor.

A year-and-a-half ago high school, college and community radio stations shut their studio doors in response to safety measures to prevent the spread of COVID. They quickly scrambled to find ways to stay on air, broadcasting archived programming, allowing DJs to pre-record or even broadcast live from home. We’ve dedicated several episodes to learning how different kinds of stations in a variety of regions confronted the emergency.

Whatever methods were employed, today – with the pandemic still ongoing – it’s heartening to listen around and note that most stations seem to have survived this period. There’s no sense that more stations closed down than in any other 18-month period. In fact, on October 1, college stations from around the world will join together in celebrating the 11th annual College Radio Day, featuring Ambassador “Weird” Al Yankovic.

We take this opportunity to survey radio’s remarkable survival story. Just as internet technology, like Zoom calls, revolutionized the ability to move work, school and other activities into the home, it also let stations stay connected with programmers and volunteers in a way that would have been significantly more challenging even just a decade earlier. Of course, we’re not arguing this is a net plus – too many lives have been lost or altered forever due to this disease. As well, working or DJing from home isn’t a boon for everyone, on top of the fact that closed studios severely impacts the collaboration and camaraderie that is at the heart of so many stations. Yet, it’s worth reflecting on why and how grassroots radio withstood this unprecedented challenge, continuing to serve listeners and communities and help them through this crisis.

• Episodes on stations dealing with the pandemic:
  • Podcast #237 – How Community & College Radio Can Deal with COVID-19
  • Podcast #238 – Social Distancing, Going Remote and Automation during Global Pandemic
  • Podcast #239 – Hunkering Down with Raven Radio in Sitka, Alaska
  • Podcast #240 – WFMU is Still On the Air During the Pandemic
  • Podcast #285 – Running a Big Community Media Organization in the 2nd Year of the Pandemic
  • Podcast #298 – College Radio at the end of the Academic COVID Year
• Oct. 1 is College Radio Day
• College Broadcasters Inc. Student Electronic Media Convention
• Radio World: “Goodbye ISDN, Hello Streaming“
• The Homelessness Marathon
• Negativland:
  • Negativland’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert
  • Negativland live (online) at the Ann Arbor Film Festival
  • Negativland’s Over the Edge Radio: Brain Science
• Princeton University’s WPRB
• Dr. Demento
• “Weird Al” Yankovic
• KCPR at Cal Poly is where “Weird” Al Got his start in radio
• Jennifer’s Tour of KRRC at Reed College
• KRRC
• Radio Survivor’s Top Radio Shows – Jennifer’s #4 – Dr. Demento

The post Podcast #317 – How Radio Survived 18 Months of Pandemic (and Keeps Going) appeared first on Radio Survivor.

What are the odds that a popular television series would feature your college radio station as a backdrop for two episodes? That’s exactly what Jennifer found, when HBO’s “Mare of Easttown” employed a set that accurately recreates Haverford College’s station as a location for the limited-run drama. Jennifer talked with the show’s production designer to get the behind-the-scenes scoop.

Paul recently experienced his own radio coincidence when he by chance discovered a storefront radio museum in the small Oregon city of Sutherlin. Although it was closed, the proprietor of the Radio Days Museum saw him outside and invited him in for a quick tour of the radio memorabilia collection. Paul also shares an orchestrated soundwalk he enjoyed down the road in Jacksonville, Oregon.

• Creating Haverford College Radio on Mare of Easttown
• Podcast #298 – College Radio at the End of the Academic Covid Year
• HBO series “Mare of Easttown”
• Jennifer’s Radio Station Tours
• Radio Days Museum in Sutherlin, Oregon
• Britt Fest’s Ellen Reid Soundwalk
• Podcast #246 – Radio in the Movies
• An Even Bigger Songs about Radio Spotify Playlist
• Podcast #297 – Radio Studies and Sound Work
• California Historical Radio Society
• “On the Radio” Exhibit at San Francisco Airport Celebrates Radio History
• Podcast #138 – Radio History on Display at the San Francisco Airport
• Radio History Imprisoned at Cork’s Radio Museum Experience

The post Podcast #306 – Radio Coincidences, from Easttown to Sutherlin appeared first on Radio Survivor.

As we wrap up Pride Month, our podcast discussion turns to queer spaces and queer community on the radio and in podcasting, specifically lesbian broadcasters in Canada. Our guest, Stacey Copeland is a media producer and Ph.D. candidate at Simon Fraser University’s School of Communication in Vancouver, Canada. Stacey has been researching the history of lesbian radio shows, including The Lesbian Show and Dykes on Mics. Community radio played an important role in welcoming gay and lesbian programming, with shows airing on stations like Vancouver Co-op Radio and campus-community radio station CKUT. Bringing the conversation to 2021, we also talk about connections between these early shows and current-day queer podcasts.

• Stacey Copeland‘s website
• SpokenWeb podcast
• Amplify Podcast Network
• Podcast #284 – SpokenWeb and Literary Sound
• Podcast #275 – Making Scholarly Podcasts Count
• Podcast #297 – Radio Studies and Soundwork with Michele Hilmes
• The Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony
• FemRadio at CJRU
• Vancouver Co-op Radio
• Dykes on Mykes on CKUT
• Listen to The Lesbian Show on Co-op Radio in The Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony
• Pride FM Toronto
• Podcast # 187 – Archiving LGBTQ Radio History
• This Way Out
• The World Soundscape Project was established by R. Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University
• Hildegard Westerkamp is a composer, radio artist, and sound ecologist
• Barry Truax is a composer and acoustic communication researcher
• The Heart podcast
• Procyon Podcast Network
• BC Gay and Lesbian Archives
• Queer FM on CITR
• Country Queers podcast
• Podcast #302 – Feminista Frequencies with Monica De La Torre
• KPFA show Lesbe Friends in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
• Podcast #135 – Resurfacing Women’s Contributions in Podcasting History with Jennifer Hyland Wang
• The ArQuives – Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives
• Mermaid Palace
• Warriors Bards ‘n Brews podcast about Xena: Warrior Princess

Image Credit: Graphic for The Lesbian Show in Vancouver Gay Community Centre Newspaper from City of Vancouver Archives AM1675-S1-F1433

The post Podcast #304 – Lesbian Radio History in Canada appeared first on Radio Survivor.

This week, we take a close look at the history of an influential Spanish language community radio station: KDNA. Located in Washington State, the station launched in 1979 and serves a rural community which includes farm workers and immigrants. Our guest, Monica De La Torre, is Assistant Professor at the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University and is the author of a forthcoming book about KDNA called Feminista Frequencies: Community Building through Radio in the Yakima Valley.

• Monica De La Torre
• Feminista Frequencies: Community Building through Radio in the Yakima Valley
• Chicana Radio Activists and the Sounds of Chicana Feminisms on SoundingOut!
• Looking Back on the Lesser-known Histories of Chicano Public Radio on Current
• KDNA radio station
• Soul Rebel Radio on KPFK in Los Angeles
• Bilingual community radio station KBBF-FM in Santa Rosa, California
• KRAB Archive for Seattle community radio station KRAB-FM (1962-1984)
• Womxn Who Rock collective
• KRZA community radio station

Related Episodes:

• Podcast #260: Radio History on the Northern Border of Mexico with guest Sonia Robles (1930-1950)
• Podcast #184: Hidden Women’s Radio History in Uruguay with guest Christine Ehrick (Radio Femenina, founded in 1935)
• Podcast #134: The KRAB-FM Archives
• Podcast #72: Pete Tridish Celebrates an LPFM Success Story (KPCN-LP, run by Oregon’s farmworkers union)

The post Podcast #302 – Feminista Frequencies appeared first on Radio Survivor.

The Federal Communications Commission recently announced that November 2, 2021 will mark the opening of the next licensing window for full-power non-commercial / educational (NCE) FM radio stations. The Commission first hinted at this chance back in fall of 2020. Given how often our listeners ask how and when they can get a radio license, we immediately dedicated an episode to that topic. Now that more is known we decided to revisit it.

Even though the application window dates have not yet been announced, now is the time to get prepared. Broadcast attorney Frank Montero guests to help us understand the process of applying for an FM broadcast license. He’s a partner with Fletcher, Heald and Hildreth, which also publishes the CommLawBlog. He explains who qualifies to apply and other requirements to keep in mind.

License application windows are the only time when an organization may apply for an FM radio license, and they don’t happen frequently. The last full-power NCE window was more than a decade ago, and the last chance at an LPFM was 2013. As the FM dial fills up in cities and towns across the country, this may be the last opportunity for a new station in many regions. If you’re interested in operating a full- or low-power non-commercial station we we hope this episode helps get you started. Even if you’re not interested, it’s important to understand just how stations get on the air in the 21st century.

• CommLawBlog – The Upcoming FCC Noncommercial FM and LPFM Filing Windows: What You Need to Know
• The Next Noncomm FM License Opportunity Opens November 2
• NFCB: Primer On The NCE Radio Filing Window
• FCC Chair: New LPFM & Noncomm License Opportunities Coming Soon
• FCC Awards Full-Power Licenses to 5 LPFMs, Plus 52 More Orgs (2010)
• FCC’s LPFM order will make 2013 a good year for community radio (2012)
• Radio Survivor documented the roll-out of new LPFM stations beginning with the most recent 2013 application window

Feature image adapted from “The FCC’s front door” by Rob Pegararo / flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The post Podcast #300 – How to Get a Noncomm FM License in 2021 (Replay) appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Colleges and high schools are finishing up their first – and, with hope, last – full academic COVID year, and all indicators are that student radio remained on the air, as students adjusted to online classes and socially distant campuses. Jennifer Waits reports back from the Intercollegiate Broadcast System annual conference, held virtually this year, where she gauged the temperature of student broadcasters and the radio professionals who shared their advice with conference attendees. She and Paul Riismandel discuss what the long-term implications of virtual and hybrid broadcasting may have for college and community radio, taking into account that the accessibility that remote technology offers is weighed against the benefits of face-to-face interaction.

Paul shares some highlights from the 2021 Infinite Dial survey from Edison Research, delivering stats on what audio Americans are using in the car, and the growth of podcast listening. He also reminds us about the upcoming non-commercial radio license opportunity, which now has a firm date in November. Jennifer and Paul then finish things out with a look at Franken FMs, which are scheduled to leave the airwaves in July, when the FCC will require all remaining analog low-power TV stations to convert to digital.

• Intercollegiate Broadcast System
• Podcast #295 – High School Podcasting with the Hosts of Rice and Shine
• High School Radio Station KMIH “The Bridge”
• HBO series “Mare of Easttown”
• Haverford on the Radio
• Haverford College’s Radio Heyday in the 1920s
• The Infinite Dial 2021
• Podcast #269 – How To Get an FM Radio License in 2021
• Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS)
• Netflix series “Daredevil“
• Leah Steuer
• Time Is Running Out for FrankenFMs – Just 4 Months Left
• The Antenna Man on YouTube: 87.7 Franken FM Radio Stations May Go Dark in July

The post Podcast #298 – College Radio at the end of the Academic COVID Year appeared first on Radio Survivor.

This week, we are joined by the hosts of the podcast Rice and Shine. Led by four Seattle-area teenagers, the chat-style program provides a glimpse into the lives of 9th graders beginning high school from a distance during a pandemic. Rice and Shine is an incredible time capsule of the current school year, as hosts Lauren, Sophie, Ava and Grace talk pop culture, discuss the challenges of remote learning, address anti-Asian American violence during the COVID-19 outbreak, and share their experiences as Asian-American girls. They launched the podcast in 2020 as part of their participation at high school radio station KMIH-FM.

• Rice and Shine podcast
• High school radio station KMIH 88.9 FM The Bridge
• Jennifer’s tour of KMIH
• Podcast #177: Seattle’s Rich High School Radio Scene
• Podcast #263 – Broadcasting High School Radio through Wildfires and a Pandemic

The post Podcast #295 – High School Podcasting with the Hosts of Rice and Shine appeared first on Radio Survivor.

This week we share more evidence of how broadest radio is an important informational lifeline and human connection for so many people. As most of the country enters year two of the pandemic, we catch up again with Becky Meiers, General Manager of community radio station KCAW-FM in Sitka, Alaska. We last spoke with Becky at the end of March 2020, before any cases of COVID-19 had been diagnosed in this remote community, though she shared the station’s preparedness plan.

KCAW serves a vital communications role in Southeastern Alaska where small communities are spread out without overland connections, and the only travel is by air or by sea. Becky tells us how the station has gotten through the last year, bringing local broadcasters back to the air as possible, while also growing its local news coverage. Becky also regales us with stories from her journeys to isolated “translator communities” where local repeater transmitters (a/k/a “translators”) required emergency repairs and maintenance.

Show Notes:

• KCAW-FM Raven Radio
• Podcast #239 – Hunkering Down with Raven Radio in Sitka, Alaska
• Touring KCAW, Sitka Alaska’s Raven Radio
• Podcast #197 – Raven Radio in Sitka, Alaska
• Report for America
• Mt. Edgecumbe High School

The post Podcast #288 – Eagle vs. Transmitter appeared first on Radio Survivor.