Episodes
This week our guest is Brian DeShazor, an independent radio researcher and founder of the Queer Radio Research Project. Formerly the Director of the Pacifica Radio Archives, DeShazor has taken a special interest in uncovering and highlighting the LGBTQ...
On this week’s episode, scholar Lerone Martin shares with us the fascinating history of African-American preachers who distributed their sermons on 78rpm records during a time when they had limited access to the radio in the 1920s-1940s. Martin,
A change in Ontario university funding rules threatens more than a dozen campus community stations in Canada. Barry Rooke, executive director of the National Campus and Community Radio Association is our guest to help explain the situation.
We celebrated International Women’s Day by recording a fascinating interview about women’s radio history with University of Louisville Professor of History Christine Ehrick. Author of Radio and the Gendered Soundscape: Women and Broadcasting in Argenti...
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the “Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement Act,” but does it actually have a chance at putting a dent in unlicensed broadcasting? We review the provisions of the the bill – called the PIRAT...
Inspired by an episode of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, we travel all the way to Antarctica to learn about mysterious community radio station, Ice Radio. Sadly, we learned of Anthony Bourdain’s death on the day that we recorded this episode.
Julia Thomas visited over a dozen community radio stations over the course of a year. Stations in Nepal, India, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Ecuador “Often times by talking to community media makers,” Julia Thomas told Radio Survivor,
The Federal Communications Commission was back in court on Feb. 1, called on to defend its decision to overturn the 2015 Open Internet Order in December 2017. It seems like the FCC lawyers didn’t have the best day in front of the DC Circuit Court of Ap...
This episode is dedicated to the compact disc. Paul recently published an article outlining 10 reasons why CDs are awesome, and it seems to have hit a nerve, turning out to be one of our most popular. So we dive into these reasons,
For about a decade, ending in 1988, pirate stations dominated the Irish radio bands, exploiting a loophole in the law that made punishments for unlicensed broadcasting on par with a speeding ticket. Now the sounds and artifacts of this cultural movemen...
In addition to co-hosting the show, Eric Klein edits most episodes, and is a professional freelance audio editor. He put some of his philosophies of editing radio and podcasts in writing for last year’s Grassroots Radio Conference,
From the “Classical Radio Era” to today’s hottest podcasts, we’re here for the love of radio drama and fictional sound-art. Our guest is Neil Verma, author of a book and teacher of classes on the subject, although as he tells us on today’s episode,
What can a careful study of sound teach us about our listening? Listening to the media we choose as well as listening to the place where we live and the people who’s voices we encounter? Prof. Jennifer Stoever thinks about these questions, a lot.
There are more unlicensed pirate radio stations in New York City than licensed stations. The borough of Brooklyn is a particular hotspot. Producer and journalist David Goren has been researching and recording these stations so that their ephemeral natu...
Zach Poff put a radio station inside a pond. Poff is a media artist, educator and maker-of-things, and he explains that project and talks about making art with radio technology and listening to sound art. This is a re-broadcast of our episode from Apri...
As 2018 draws to a close the FCC is poised to throw another death blow at radio, proposing to allow complete ownership monopolies in hundreds of radio markets. At the same time the Commission has to defend its decimation of network neutrality in court,...
At the end of 2018 all indicators are that radio is thriving. From community radio to podcasting, internet radio to college radio, we’re seeing new stations, new listeners and new ideas. It’s all more evidence that we’re in the post-‘radio is dead’ era...
Paul shares a few more details of his trip to Brazil, and then he and Eric listen to a bandscan of the FM dial recorded on a Sunday night in São Paulo, the country’s largest city. Christian radio? Check. Bad 80s pop music? Yep.
Álvaro Burns is a community radio broadcaster in São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, where he hosts a local sports show on Rádio Paraty FM and he produces the podcast “A Hora do Cafezinho.” Álvaro is a long-time friend of the show,
The Free Music Archive is shutting down. A website attached to the listener-sponsored radio station WFMU, the FMA expanded the role community radio played in the online space. It was a library of a huge and always growing amount of free mp3’s that span...
Radio Anthropologist Thomas Witherspoon
Do you remember audioblogging? Prof. Andrew Bottomley does, and he’s here to tell some alternative histories of podcasting. From “Geek of the Week” to Odeo, he illuminates many more bygone shows and platforms from the 1990s and early 2000s that gave ri...
The FCC has proposed to de-fund community media through an arcane rule that determines how contributions from cable companies to public-access, educational and government (PEG) stations are counted. Because it’s arcane,
Live from the College Broadcasters, Inc. Convention in Seattle we take on college radio’s place in the contemporary media landscape. After deciding not to sell its radio station 13 years ago, the University of Evansville administration said,
When Tipper Gore and the PMRC called rock and rap stars to testify in front of Congress about explicit lyrics, did this affect college radio? How could it not? Prof. Kate Jewell is examining the relationship between college stations and the culture war...
Radio Survivor co-founder Matthew Lasar declares we’re in the post-“Radio Is Dead” era, during a time when audio media has survived and thrived, whether you listen over the broadcast airwaves, podcast, satellite or internet stream.
What will community radio sound like in 2023? Will the death of net neutrality make radio even important? Will analog FM radio even exist anymore? Two active and insightful community media activists joins us to tackle these questions and more,
College Radio Day is October 5, and on this episode we reflect on the value of this special brand of radio, and Jennifer shares her tour of Vassar College’s station, WVKR. Radio Survivor is a listener-supported podcast.
Internet radio is older than you think. In fact, it’s at least a quarter-century old… and maybe even a little older. That’s the history Dom Robinson uncovered, and he joins to tell the story. He’s the co-founder of online video company id3as and a cont...
Programming changes draw attention at one college station, while another might be close to the auction block, and a new San Francisco LPFM steps in to the spiritual space left behind by a beloved departed station.