Episodes

There are undiscovered musical treasures potentially fading away in closets, basements and storage units around the world. Seattle radio station KEXP teamed up with local universities and media organizations to help save a little of this cultural history with the Pop-Up Music Memory Digitization Lab. For one day members of the public were invited to bring their audio and video tapes of home- and self-recorded music performances for digitizing and archiving. KEXP’s Media Asset Librarian Dylan Fl...

Two interviews that cover the state of low power radio in the United States. Stations that are on the air without a license – also known as Pirate Radio – and the low power stations that have FCC permission to broadcast due in part to the hard work of the former pirates. This episode is composed of two halves of older episodes of Radio Survivor. An interview with Pete Tridish from November of 2016 and then an interview with John Anderson from October of 2017. Links below: Show Notes: Podcast #...

The Eclipse Show on community radio station KGNU in Boulder CO is celebrating 40 years on the air, making it quite possibly the longest running hip hop radio show in the world. Radio Survivor has been examining the role that community and college radio has played in the development of hip hop culture, especially in the 80’s and 90’s. Today we bring you an interview with DJ A-L of The Eclipse show, who through a series of remarkable coincidences (as well as following his passion) has found himsel...

Radios in the trees, a transmitter in the pond, and a weather-driven synth. These are just some of what you’ll find on The Wave Farm, a 29-acre property in New York’s Hudson Valley dedicated to radio and transmission arts. It’s anchored by community radio station WGXC, accompanied by a cornucopia of additional tiny terrestrial and internet stations. Jennifer Waits takes us on an auditory tour of the farm, along with a visit to the station’s Hudson, NY studio, where station manager and managing ...

What killed smooth jazz radio? Why aren’t there any commercial classical stations any longer? And, why do radio stations have a “format” to begin with? Matthew Lasar joins us to explore these questions about the fundamental organizing principle of most music radio. Matthew is a co-founder of Radio Survivor and the author of three important books on radio, including Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network and Radio 2.0. Show Notes: Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American...

How do I start podcasting? That’s one of the questions we field most frequently. So we answer it, in this second installment of our “Frequently Asked Questions” series. But first we do some follow-up about phone phreaker ‘Captain Crunch’ Draper (#147) and the nearly 1,000 challenges filed against applications for FM translator repeater stations (#144). Paul also reports on the National Association of Broadcasters’ proposal to further loosen radio ownership regulations. Radio Survivor is a list...

Did you know that upwards of 350 radio stations were established at summer camps across the United States? Dan Braverman, President of Radio Systems, Inc., joins us to share the history of summer camp radio, including his own experience setting up a camp radio station when he was just nine years old. Still involved with his youthful camp, Radio Free Ramah (WCRP) at Camp Ramah in the Poconos, Braverman chats about the power of hyper-local radio and how he built a radio business by initially setti...

On this week’s episode we venture to prison and to a very unusual high school radio station. Members of the artist collective Provisional Island (Heidi Ratanavanich, Eileen Shumate, and Michael McCanne) speak with us about their prison-radio-themed exhibit, An Electric Kite, which is on view at the historic site/museum Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia through at least fall, 2018. The installation incorporates a low power radio transmission as well as a visual components. Additionally,...

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. Ice Radio is the latest iteration of a radio station that began more than 50 years ago at McMurdo Station. Our guest Elizabeth Delaquess is a Broadcast Engineer at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, working at both the radio and television stations there. Sh...

The Hip-Hop Radio Archive aims to digitize, preserve, share, and contextualize recordings of hip-hop radio from the 1980s and 1990s from commercial, college, community, and pirate stations of all sizes, telling the stories of the shows and the people that made them. Our guest is founder of the archive, Ryan MacMichael. Radio Survivor is a listener-supported podcast. You can support us two ways: Make a monthly contribution through our Patreon campaign. Make a one-time or recurring donation with...

Applications for 1,000 translator radio stations may pose a threat to low-power FM stations, say three community radio groups. So the groups filed informal objections against all of them, slowing down the FCC’s processing of these applications. This move has sparked controversy within the radio industry. The Center for International Media Action, Common Frequency, Inc. and Prometheus Radio Project are the groups behind the objections to these proposed translators, which are low-powered stations...

The future of all communications is at stake, explains Tim Karr, Senior Director of Strategy and Communications for Free Press. On May 15 the Senate voted to restore Net Neutrality by overturning the FCC’s decision to undo the 2015 Open Internet order. Now the fight turns to the House. While victory is uncertain, Karr says that there are many battlegrounds where Net Neutrality may be won. He tells us how grassroots campaigns helped to secure the Senate vote, and why Net Neutrality is actually a...

Kanye West and Common had an epic freestyle rap battle on WHPK. That’s just one reason why the University of Chicago’s station is interesting and historic. Jennifer Waits takes us on a virtual tour of the studios, located in an actual working bell tower. Jennifer, Eric and Paul also discuss how college radio has played a formative and supporting role in the development of hip-hop, by providing an open, often uncensored platform for new and emerging artists. Then we dig into a recent New York Ti...

Musician, DJ and radio artist Don Joyce passed away nearly three years ago, leaving behind a voluminous archive of his unparalelled collage radio program “Over the Edge.” The documentary “How Radio Isn’t Done” sheds light on this member of Negativland, his life and his work in recontextualizing the never-ending flow of media messages that flood everyday life. Director Ryan Worsley joins to talk about Joyce, his hyper-focused artistic process and what she learned creating this affectionate and h...

Our first live episode might just blow your mind. Recorded at the Alliance for Community Media Northwest Summit, it’s time to break down barriers between media platforms. That’s we’re tackling podcasting and virtual reality, and how they relate to social justice and equity. Our guests are writer, artist, teacher and activist Reagan Jackson and Sandy Cioffi, founder and creative director of fearless360º, a new media and virtual reality production company in Seattle. Together we tackle the vital ...

The Sinclair Group is already the largest TV owner by far in the U.S. and its editorial content makes it essentially a propaganda arm of the Trump Administration. Will the F.C.C. under Trump succeed in bending media ownership rules to allow Sinclair to grow to twice its current size? Under President Obama, the F.C.C allowed Comcast and NBC to merge into a huge media owner, which really opened the door and now Sinclair-Tribune is about to take a huge leap through that door, to create what is ess...

We visit the “On The Radio” exhibit on radio history at the San Francisco Airport Museum, where travelers can feast their eyes on 27 cases full of historical items related to radio’s past, ranging from 1920s crystal radios to 1970s novelty radios. Jennifer chats with exhibit curator Daniel Calderon and California Historical Radio Society President Steve Kushman about the exhibit. And Paul brings us an update on where unlicensed radio, aka Pirates, stand under Trump’s FCC. The “Mystic” Radio Bug...

http://media.blubrry.com/radio_survivor/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/427974117-radio-survivor-rs137-tranmission-art-with-zach-poff.mp3 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. Show Notes Zach Poff’s Pond Station is broadcasting live during the day-light hours from just below the surface of a pond. Soundcamp is a network of listening...

Jennifer Waits takes us on tours of two storied college stations, with deep roots in their communities. WIIT-FM is the student station at the Illinois Institute of Technology, housed in the modern Rem Koolhaas designed McCormick Tribune Campus Center situated at the intersection of Chicago’s Bronzeville and Bridgeport neighborhoods. WKCR is Columbia University’s station, with a rich history in New York City’s jazz community, whose many luminaries have paid a visit. We learn how IIT was home to ...

Women made significant contributions to the initial development of podcasting that have been forgotten. Historian Jennifer Hyland-Wang has been resurfacing these contributions, and drawing parallels with women’s contributions to the formative years of radio. She joins us on this episode to share this history and examine the ways in which the structural biases of the podcast industry have minimized women. Show Notes: She Podcasts Craft Lit Podcast “Clara, Lu and Em” “Clara, Lu and Em” at the In...

KRAB was the fourth-ever community radio station in the U.S., serving Seattle, WA from 1962 to 1984. Like any community station, it broadcast thousands of hours of original and important programming during that time, documenting important social movements and voices not heard, or not heard clearly, in mainstream media. Former volunteer and board member Chuck Reinsch is on a mission to preserve as much of the station’s legacy as possible. He created and administers the KRAB Archives website to h...

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 nature isn’t lost to history. To help preserve this legacy and make it accessible to a wider audience he’s constructing an interactive map of Brooklyn pirates, due to be released later this year. David joins us on this episode along with Prof. John An...

How often do you think about how you listen? What assumptions do you make about a person’s voice, their pitch or accent? What sound is desirable, and what’s rejected as noise? Prof. Jennifer Stoever thinks about these questions, a lot. And so do a growing number of scholars working in a field called Sound Studies. That’s the topic of the “Sounding Out” blog and podcast, which Prof. Stoever co-founded. She’s an associate professor of English at the University of Binghamton, and she’s our guest t...

What if you could record your podcast at your local library, for free? In British Columbia, the Vancouver Public Library and West Vancouver Memorial let you do just that. And much more. Both libraries provide studio space, tools and instruction for creating podcasts, radio, videos and other forms of community media. But there’s more to it than that. Sam Mills from Vancouver Public Library and Sarah Felkar from the West Vancouver Public Library explain how their libraries help people be digital ...