Radio Survivor Podcast

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

The PIRATE Act was signed into law more than a year ago, but the rules governing increased fines for unlicensed broadcasting are about to go into effect on April 26. The Act is intended to give the FCC additional tools for tamping down pirate radio activity in hot beds like Boston and Brooklyn, NY, but […] The post Podcast #294 – Reading the PIRATE Act / FCC & the Supremes Pt. 2 appeared first on Radio Survivor.

What is radio art? What is transmission art? We discuss the experimental side of radio and artistic uses of radio transmissions on our show this week, looking at historical and contemporary examples. Artist and scholar Anna Friz joins us to chat about these concepts, sharing how her college/community radio past in Canada inspired her to […] The post Podcast #293 – Exploring Radio Art and Transmission Art appeared first on Radio Survivor.

What is sound art? And what do we know about its origin story? We explore this question and more with our guest this week, artist and educator Judy Dunaway. An adjunct professor in the History of Art Department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Dunaway’s recent article, “The Forgotten 1979 MoMA Sound Art Exhibition,” […] The post Podcast #292 – The History of Sound Art appeared first on Radio Survivor.

A super hero comic is at the heart of The New Adventures of Super Indian, a forthcoming audio drama from Native Voices at the Autry. Our guests on the show include Super Indian’s creator, playwright and director, Arigon Starr (an enrolled member of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma) and artistic director DeLanna Studi (an enrolled […] The post Podcast #291 – The New Adventures of Super Indian appeared first on Radio Survivor.

One of the biggest celebrities in Los Angeles in the early part of the 20th century was Aimee Semple McPherson. She inspired scandalous headlines and fictional depictions, including the character Sister Molly on the Showtime series, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels and Sister Alice McKeegan on the 2020 HBO reboot of Perry Mason. Yet the […] The post Podcast #290 – Aimee Semple McPherson and the Early History of Radio Evangelists appeared first on Radio Survivor.

In honor of Women’s History Month, this week’s episode focuses on women in sound. Our guests, Jennifer Hyland Wang and Jenny Stoever, return to the show to discuss sound studies, the cultural politics of listening, the history of women’s voices on the airwaves and on podcasts, as well as broader issues of representation. Jennifer Hyland […] The post Podcast #289 – Celebrating Women in Sound 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 […] The post Podcast #288 – Eagle vs. Transmitter appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Jennifer, Eric and Paul join together to review what’s news as we kick off the month of March. Top of the list is an upcoming FCC radio license auction. Originally planned for April 2020, but delayed by the first coronavirus lockdowns, the auction will see 140 commercial radio construction permits up for bid. We discuss […] The post Podcast #287 – New Station Opportunity, Women’s History Month, and more appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this week’s show we take a look at the ways that Native Americans used sound technology during radio’s earliest days and how that inspired and led to the flourishing Native media landscape, including tribal radio stations. Our guest, Josh Garrett-Davis, is Associate Curator at the Autry Museum and author of a recently completed dissertation: […] The post Podcast #286 – Native American Voices on the Air in the Early Days of Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Nathan Moore is the General Manager at WTJU and the Staff Advisor of WXTJ at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He is also the current President of the Board of the NFCB, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. We invited Nathan Moore onto the show to ask about running community and college radio stations […] The post Podcast #285 – Running a Big Community Media Organization in the 2nd Year of the Pandemic appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this week’s show we learn about SpokenWeb, a Canadian project focused on the preservation of literary sound recordings. Partly inspired by the energetic poetry scene of the 1960s, SpokenWeb works to preserve recordings of these live events and also describe and share this material. Our guest, Hannah McGregor, leads the SpokenWeb Podcast Task Force […] The post Podcast #284 – SpokenWeb and Literary Sound appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On Radio Survivor we are interested in not only audio, but also its history as well as preservation efforts. Along those lines, we have done numerous episodes about archives. We additionally have a strong passion for student-produced media, like high school and college radio. On this episode, we discuss an interesting intersection of the two, […] The post Podcast #283 – Project STAND is Archiving Student Activism appeared first on Radio Survivor.

What a difference a week makes. President Biden has appointed Jessica Rosenworcel as acting chair of the Federal Communications Commission, only the second time a woman has held the post. This signals the beginning of a new agenda at the Commission – though currently evenly split down party lines – and Prof. Christopher Terry from […] The post Podcast #282 – New FCC, Who Dis? appeared first on Radio Survivor.

There are a few stories we were watching closely at the end of 2020, and we wanted to bring listeners up to date. First up is Section 230, the law that provides a degree of immunity to online platforms – from social media to community radio stations – for consequences resulting from what their users […] The post Podcast #281 – Wrapping Up Section 230 & the VOA appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Radio history is close to our hearts at Radio Survivor and on this week’s episode we explore the story of student radio in Australia. Our guest, Rafal Alumairy, is working on book about this little-told history. She shares with us details not only about the timeline of student radio in Australia, but also some intriguing […] The post Podcast #280 – Student Radio History in Australia appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Zach Poff put a radio station inside a pond. Poff is a media artist, educator and maker-of-things, and he explains that project and talks about making art with radio technology and listening to sound art. This is a re-broadcast of our episode from April, 2018. Show Notes Zach Poff’s Pond Station is broadcasting live during […] The post Podcast #279 – Zach Poff Built a Radio Station Inside a Pond appeared first on Radio Survivor.

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 […] The post Podcast #278 – The Wave Farm Grows Transmission Arts (rebroadcast) appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Even though Trump is leaving the White House on January 19, he’s set up the FCC to carry on his idiosyncratic policy goals well into the Biden administration, especially if a Republican-led Senate resists the new president’s nomination for a new chairman. At the last minute, Trump decided not to renominate FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly […] The post Podcast #277 – How Does the FCC Solve Anything? appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Though there are many good reasons why one might not want to look back at the year that was, we still see some aspects worth noting. In particular, radio and podcasting proved to be resilient media, with broadcasters and podcasters rallying to meet the challenges of quarantines and social distancing brought on by the COVID-19 […] The post Podcast #276 – 2020 the Year in Radio and Sound appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Podcasting is increasingly being taken up by people in academia, for myriad reasons. Some professors are looking for ways to share their work, others use it as a research tool, some include it as part of their teaching practice, while others seek to include podcasting as an official part of their scholarly output. We dig […] The post Podcast #275: Making Scholarly Podcasts Count appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Poet Kenneth Goldsmith created UbuWeb in 1996 as an online repository for obscure avant-garde art that, by virtue of having little commercial potential, was hard to find. Audio was an early component of the archive, owing to Kenneth’s interest in sound poetry, an even more obscure art form. Since then he’s served as the chief, […] The post Podcast #274 – UbuWeb is a Hand Coded Archive that Stands the Test of Time appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this most unusual of Thanksgiving weeks, we are honored to speak with Alice Brock, the woman who provided much inspiration for Arlo Guthrie’s inadvertent Thanksgiving Day radio staple, “Alice’s Restaurant.” Brock shares with us not only some insight into the 18-minute anti-war epic; but also stories about her life and holiday traditions. For 2020, […] The post Podcast #273: Thanksgiving and Radio Traditions with Alice Brock of “Alice’s Restaurant” appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Carl Malamud is credited with having one of the very first streaming internet talk radio shows, “Geek of the Week,” beginning in 1993. And because it was available for download, too, it’s considered a proto-podcast. Carl joins us this week to dig into this early history of internet radio, recounting how his efforts quickly snowballed […] The post Podcast #272 – ‘Geek of the Week’ and the Beginning of Internet Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Eric, Jennifer and Paul reconvene to catch up on all that is news to us in the worlds of radio and sound. The FCC just unanimously approved all-digital operation on the AM band, while commercial radio – born on the AM band – celebrates its centennial. But keep in mind that broadcast radio is older […] The post Podcast #271: AM Radio Goes Digital as It Celebrates a Centennial appeared first on Radio Survivor.

In the last few years a number of large and prominent public media organizations have been forced to confront the effects of sexism, racism and harassment within their own organizations that has been tolerated for too long. One clear cause is a serious lack of diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the public media system. Public […] The post Podcast #270: Public Media for All appeared first on Radio Survivor.

The Federal Communications Commission has announced that it will open two filing windows for non-commercial FM radio licenses. First up will be an opportunity to apply for a full-power non-commercial / educational (NCE) license, followed by a low-power FM opportunity. Even though the application window dates have not yet been announced, now is the time […] The post Podcast #269 – How To Get an FM Radio License in 2021 appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Over the course of four seasons, the Peabody-nominated podcast “Scene on Radio,” a production of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, has earned a reputation for tackling head-on difficult topics around race, gender, justice and equity. But it didn’t start out that way. It started life as a documentary anthology that host and […] The post Podcast #268 – Scene on Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

This week, the Radio Survivor crew did its first live broadcast from a virtual conference held over Zoom. As part of the 2020 Grassroots Radio Conference, we presented a live radio show during the event, which aired over host station ARTxFM’s (WXOX-LP) FM signal in Louisville, Kentucky as well as over the internet. The topic […] The post Podcast #267 – Live from the Grassroots Radio Conference: Community Radio and Protests appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Flirt FM at the National University of Ireland at Galway was one of the first “community of interest” stations to go on the air in that nation. Effectively, this means it was a trailblazing college and community station, hitting the air not long after the state broadcast monopoly began to erode in 1988. Andrew Ó […] The post Podcast #266 – Flirt FM Celebrates 25 Years of College & Community Radio in Ireland appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Over the past few months, there’s been a flurry of media attention focused on the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Some reports describe it as a “little-known” agency and, in fact, it may seem mysterious to many in the United States, since it oversees international broadcasting programs all over the world, including Voice […] The post Podcast #265 – Inside the “Little Known” Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for Global Media appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Joe Boyd is best known as a record producer (he worked with Pink Floyd and Nick Drake just to name two artists) and he is the author of the book “White Bicycles, Making Music in the 1960’s.” In 2015 he launched a podcast. Joe Boyd’s A-Z which ran for 52 episodes (that’s one episode for […] The post Podcast # 264 – Joe Boyd appeared first on Radio Survivor.

With wildfires raging up and down the west coast of the United States amid the coronavirus pandemic, many radio stations are facing different types of challenges than a year ago. Vacaville Christian Schools’ radio station KVCB-LP (aka VCS Radio) is in a community that was hit hard by a wild fire in August 2020. When […] The post Podcast #263 – Broadcasting High School Radio through Wildfires and a Pandemic appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Eric Nuzum started NPR’s podcasting efforts in 2005. He worked at NPR for over a decade and helped produce hit shows like “TED Radio Hour” and “Invisibila.” He left NPR for Audible, where he led Amazons efforts in short form audio and podcasts until 2018. Eric Nuzum is the author of the book “Make Noise: […] The post Podcast #262 – Eric Nuzum (rebroadcast) appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Jennifer, Eric and Paul get the gang back together to remember community radio innovator Lorenzo Milam, who passed away on July 19. We reflect on how he helped to propagate a community access model of broadcasting that departed somewhat from the model of the first Pacifica stations, and was reflective of the counter-cultural currents of […] The post Podcast #261 – Remembering Lorenzo Milam appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Border radio is one of our favorite topics at Radio Survivor and on this week’s episode we dig into the history of radio broadcasting on the northern border of Mexico. Scholar Sonia Robles shares the stories of some of the lesser-known, small broadcasters whose histories are often overshadowed by the wild tales of higher power […] The post Podcast #260 – Radio History on the Northern Border of Mexico appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On August 27, 2020, nomadic online radio station Radioee.net is presenting a live, translingual 24-hour broadcast, Wireless, featuring 24 radio stations from all over the world. Taking place on the 100th anniversary of the first radio broadcast in Argentina and the first mass public entertainment broadcast in the world; Wireless launches at midnight Buenos Aires […] The post Podcast #259 – Radioee.net Celebrates 100 Year History of Wireless Communication appeared first on Radio Survivor.

The FCC is testing its luck with the Supreme Court, after years of failure in attempting to revise media ownership regulations using justifications that pass Constitutional scrutiny. Prof. Christopher Terry from the University of Minnesota joins us to explain what the Commission argues, and what its odds are. However, a more immediate concern is that […] The post Podcast #258 – Trump Admin Raises the Specter of the Fairness Doctrine appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On July 14, 1995 the file extension .MP3 was chosen and set in place for an audio format that would go on to change music. Artist, scholar and curator John Kannenberg marks the 25th anniversary of this event with an online exhibit, “MP3 @ 25: The Anniversary Exhibition” at his Museum of Portable Sound. John […] The post Podcast #257 – Marking a Quarter-Century of MP3 appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Poet Kenneth Goldsmith created UbuWeb in 1996 as an online repository for obscure avant-garde art that, by virtue of having little commercial potential, was hard to find. Audio was an early component of the archive, owing to Kenneth’s interest in sound poetry, an even more obscure art form. Since then he’s served as the chief, […] The post Podcast #256 – The Robin Hood of the Avant-Garde appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Carl Malamud is credited with having one of the very first streaming internet talk radio shows, “Geek of the Week,” beginning in 1993. And because it was available for download, too, it’s considered a proto-podcast. Carl joins us this week to dig into this early history of internet radio, recounting how his efforts quickly snowballed […] The post Podcast #255 – ‘Geek of the Week’ and the Beginning of Internet Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this week’s show, we take a trip back to the early 20th century to learn about the recording industry’s intertwined relationship with radio and music culture. Our guest is Kyle Barnett, Associate Professor of Media Studies in the Department of Communication at Bellarmine University. Barnett’s forthcoming book, Record Cultures: The Transformation of the U.S. […] The post Podcast #254 – The Intertwined History of the Radio and Recording Industries appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Internet radio was born more than 25 years ago, yet, according to Edison Research, only in the last month has the medium garnered just 10% of all broadcast listening time in the US. We might lay at least some blame on the commercial radio industry, which didn’t embrace it until well into the 2000s, long […] The post Podcast 253 – Sound Streams: Dissecting the History of Internet Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

This week, we explore the ancestor of public radio in the United States: educational radio. Our guest, Stephanie Sapienza, helps to bring educational radio archives to life through her work on the multi-institution “Unlocking the Airwaves” project. As Digital Humanities Archivist at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities at University of Maryland, Sapienza […] The post Podcast # 252 – Exploring the Seeds of Public Radio in Educational Radio Archives appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Our guest on Radio Survivor is producing The Global Queer Read-In: A Virtual Pride Event; a 12 hour long webcast to celebrate LGBTQ literature. Brian DeShazor is the brand new CEO of Overnight Productions, which produces the radio show This Way Out. This Way Out has been on the air for 31 years, a weekly […] The post Podcast #251 – The Global Queer Read-In appeared first on Radio Survivor.

One of the biggest celebrities in Los Angeles in the early part of the 20th century was Aimee Semple McPherson. She inspired scandalous headlines and fictional depictions, including the character Sister Molly on the current Showtime series, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels. Yet the story that is less frequently told is McPherson’s embrace of radio. […] The post Podcast #250 – Aimee Semple McPherson and the Early History of Radio Evangelists appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Scholar Jocelyn Robinson says about one-third of Historically Black Colleges and Universities have radio stations. Her mission is to survey them and help preserve their histories and recorded legacies through the HBCU Radio Station Archival Survey Project, which she directs. On this episode Robinson tells us about this project, and explains why it’s important to […] The post Podcast #249 – Documenting & Preserving Radio at HBCUs appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this week’s episode, scholar Lerone Martin shares with us the fascinating history of African-American preachers who distributed their sermons on 78rpm records during a time when they had limited access to the radio in the 1920s-1940s. Martin, Associate Professor in Religion and Politics at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at […] The post Podcast #248 – African American Preachers on Wax appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Over the course of four seasons, the Peabody-nominated podcast “Scene on Radio,” a production of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, has earned a reputation for tackling head-on difficult topics around race, gender, justice and equity. But it didn’t start out that way. It started life as a documentary anthology that host and […] The post Podcast #247 – Scene on Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Portrayals of radio in popular culture provide an interesting glimpse at radio’s role in society. At Radio Survivor, we’ve long been fascinated by radio depictions on both the small and large screen; so it is a treat to dive into this topic with Hemrani Vyas, Programming Coordinator at Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Vyas curated an […] The post Podcast #246 – Radio in the Movies appeared first on Radio Survivor.