Environmental Encroachment on the mediageek radioshow – sound, pictures and video

In a change of pace from the otherwise talk-dominated radioshow, my guests this week were the magic circus band Environmental Encroachment. They played several songs in WNUR’s multi-use studio number 105, in addition to our interview. The show is now available for listening and download at the radioshow site.

Because the EE marching band is also a visual presence I took some photos and video [YouTube Vimeo] of the performance to give you a sense of what it’s like when the band plays out.

Big thanks go to my old friend and EE trombonist Dan Merlo for suggesting the idea, along with everyone in Environmental Encroachment for coming out to the show. Also, big thanks go to WNUR Airplay team members Lori Crasnic–for making all the arrangements to have the band in–and Lucas Seagall–for engineering the music portion of the show.

The Past, Present and Future Survival of Radio

The mediageek radioshow’s informal multi-week focus on the medium of radio wraps up this Thursday with guest Jerry Del Colliano. For 28 years he published the radio industry newsletter Inside Radio, was clinical professor of the music industry at the University of Southern California and now publishes the blog Inside Music Media. Del Colliano had a unique vantage point to watch the consolidation and downfall of commercial radio, and he saw it coming. Now on his blog he documents the foundering of Clear Channel and other major broadcasters while forecasting the future of music media, with or without radio.

Tune in this Thursday June 18 at 9 PM CDT to 89.3 FM WNUR in Chicago on your analog radio or listen online at wnur.org. Of course the show will be available for podcast and download by Sunday at midnight at the radioshow site.

Continuing on the radio tip, I would like to now announce that I’ve embarked on a new group blog project focused on radio, along with two other collaborators who are both astute observers of the medium. The new blog is RadioSurvivor.com. My collaborators are the dogged FCC watcher, media historian and Ars Technica writer Matthew Lasar and Jennifer Waits, the woman behind the Spinning Indie blog and an expert on the history and vital role of college radio.

Our goal with the RadioSurvivor is to provide comprehensive coverage of radio from a variety of perspectives, from policy and regulation to technology and programming. We’re fans of radio and believe strongly in its viability as a medium with a future, despite the major commercial owners doing their best to run their stations into the ground.

Taking on RadioSurvivor doesn’t mean I’ll post here less. In fact, I think this will spur me to incorporate some new topics into the mediageek blog while I publish my more radio-centric material at RadioSurvivor.

Being a group blog our plan is to make sure RadioSurvivor has lots of fresh content every week — more than any one of us can do on our own. I hope you’ll check it out. Your comments are welcome!

On This Week’s Radioshow: German Experimental Radio

I’m excited this week to have as my guest Daniel Gilfillan, an associate professor of German studies and information literacy at Arizona State University, and author of the new book Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio. What’s interesting about this topic is how early German radio enthusiasts, scholars and producers sought to make that medium something more than a means for broadcasting light entertainment and, eventually, propaganda. In his book Gilfillan makes crucial connections between these early experiments and our contemporary multi-media world where we still stand in that disputed territory between producer and receiver.

This interview airs live on the mediageek radioshow this Thursday, May 21, at 9 PM Central Time on WNUR 89.FM in Chicago. You can tune in live online at wnur.org.

Before and during the program please send me your questions and comments via email (mediageek(at)gmail.com) or via Twitter, and I’ll read them on air.

Talkin’ Genachowski, FCC Heir Apparent, on Thursday’s radioshow

Ace FCC watcher Matthew Lasar will be my guest on this week’s radioshow to talk about the new FCC Chairman apparent, Julius Genachowski. Matthew will lay some knowledge about Genachowski’s past and help us polish the crystal ball to see what communications future this cat will bring us.

Tune in to the show live at 9 PM CST, Thursday, Jan. 15 on WNUR 89.3 FM Evanston-Chicago, IL, live stream at wnur.org. Or you can catch the archive later at radio.mediageek.net or on any of the other 15 stations that carry the program, like KWMD, 90.7 FM Kasilof, AK & 104.5 Anchorage, AK or Radio Free Moscow, KRFP 92.5 FM, Moscow, ID.

NY Times Discovers College Radio Doesn’t Suck… er, no duh.

It’s got to be tough to be a NY Times reporter. As the stalwart standard-bearer of US print journalism, whenever you report on a cultural phenomenon you’re responsible for ostensibly declaring it as new, or newly rediscovered, newly viable…. newly whatever. While at the same time cultural insiders view that coverage with both “no duh” knowing disdain, along with the muted pride of being noticed by the Old Grey Lady.

So, that’s my stance on the Times’ recent article on continuing relevancy of college radio, spotlighting WRPI at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and KWVA at the University of Oregon. But primarily I’m glad to see the Times taking notice of what feels like an increasingly forgotten form of radio.

I got my start in college radio at WTSR-FM at the College of New Jersey (it was Trenton State College when I was there), and I’m very glad to say that ‘TSR is still a truly student-run station. Now I have the great privilege of being the adviser to student-run WNUR-FM at Northwestern University. Although it seems the bloodshed has slowed, during the 90s and early 00s there seemed to be quite a slate of student stations being reclaimed by college administrations in order to be repurposed into public radio stations or even sold off to the highest bidder (usually a church or christian broadcaster). It seems that things have now stabilized, and I hope that the remaining student-run stations are able to stay that way, although I fear the economic downturn again will make college-owned stations seem like tasty prospects for quick cash.

Along with community radio, student-run college radio is one of the last strongholds for independently programmed radio that is responsive to local community. Student-run stations are often criticized by students and non-students for being comparatively elitist and unrepresentative of both campus and local community. I remember in my college days the station being criticized for playing mostly indie rock that many (if not most) of my fellow students weren’t interested in. They’d tell us that they would listen more if only the station would play more mainstream pop and rock like the local CHR station. While the management of the station might have liked to believe these students, even then we all had enough of an instinctive understanding of basic political economy to recognize that our little college station was no match for the commercial CHR’s advertising and market power. In essence, it was absurd to compete with the commercial stations on their own turf, and a complete waste of the noncommercial license to even attempt it.

As an adviser to a college station in 2008 I see the same trends noted in the Times article, in that the contemporary college student listens to way less radio now than when I was a freshman in 1989. It’s no longer the case that the average college student prefers the local pop station to their college station. Rather, the average college student really does prefer her iPod.

Yet, I argue that true student-run and programmed college stations play a valuable role of cultural and political education in their communities. It’s often overlooked that most college stations are also staffed by a percentage of community volunteers who bring in both community representation and a broader range of experience. While not the same as community radio, any community that has a student-run station should be thankful that this beacon of noncommercial integrity often comes as a partial or wholly-funded gift from the college or university that sponsors it.

Yes, it may esoteric, amateurish or occasionally sophomoric, but I also know that without college radio many a community would have no jazz, classical, bluegrass, blues or experimental music on its airwaves, in addition to the more youth-associated genres of indie rock, metal, rap, dance and electronic.

Sure, many people now turn to the internet, satellite radio and downloads for the music they would have once gotten on the airwaves. But what about those without the resources, money, knowledge or wherewithal to use the ‘net or iPods? Or who want to be able to tune in anywhere without any hassle? Radio isn’t dead, even if the proclivities of the professional middle class are changing.

Yuppies (even if they look like hipsters) never listened to music radio much anyway….

On this week’s radioshow: White Spaces Are Go!

On this week’s radioshow I’ll be speaking with Tim Karr, Campaign Director at Free Press and a contributor to the Huffington Post. We discuss the Tuesday vote at the FCC approving the use of white spaces for wireless broadband, along with a brief look at what an Obama White House means for media reform.

The show airs live tonight, Thursdays, 9 – 10 PM Central time on WNUR 89.3 FM Evanston-Chicago, IL and online at WNUR.org. You can catch it on Friday at 5:30 PM on Community Radio WEFT 90.1 FM in Champaign-Urbana, IL, which also has a live stream.

If you can’t catch the live streams, the show will be available at the radioshow website this weekend, and airs on thirteen other community stations next week.

On tonight’s radioshow: Chicago Independent Radio Project

While there is a lot of good non-commercial radio in Chicago, one thing the city lacks is a true community station, programmed entirely by community volunteers and funded by community donations. Of course, it’s great that college stations like Northwestern’s WNUR and University of Chicago’s WHPK actively open their studios to community programmers. However, even great college radio is not quite the same as community radio.

That’s why an intrepid group of media pioneers are trying to get a true community station on the air in Chicago, with the Chicago Independent Radio Project. The effort required is more mammoth than other smaller cities because Chicago has no vacant frequencies for a full-power or low-power station anywhere near the city. So besides the significant task of fundraising and organizing necessary to get a station on the air, CHIRP has to take on the FCC and Congress to have rational LPFM channel spacing, allowing some new community stations to join Chicago’s and other cities’ airwaves.

On tonight’s radioshow Shawn Campbell, president of CHIRP, will join me to talk about the effort, its reason for being, its mission, and the challenges that lie ahead. Tune in live tonight on the radio or online at 9 PM CDT on WNUR 89.3 FM, Evanston, IL, or at 5:30 PM CDT tomorrow, Friday, at 5:30 PM on community radio WEFT 90.1 in Champaign, IL (also online). The show will be posted to the radioshow page by the weekend, and airs on a dozen other community stations, also listed on the radioshow page.

Post-First-WNUR-Show Recap

Just finished my first hour-long mediageek on the mighty WNUR. We had some phone system troubles during the first 10 minutes or so. First I couldn’t hear my guest, John, then he couldn’t hear me. But the very able producer/engineer Andrew figured out the glitch and got us up and working for the balance of the hour.

This is the first live show I’ve done since March and it reminds me how much I love live radio. I’m not a perfectionist, so I can roll with the little tech glitches. In fact, I think they remind the listeners that there’s a real human being working in real time behind the mic. Not a patchwork of pre-recorded segments with the occasional live break to give the time, traffic and weather on the eights.

For April through last week I’ve been recording the show podcast style in my home office on my MacBook. And while that provides a little more control, in that environment I find it hard to be inspired, nevermind focused and concise. It’s a matter of personality and preference I’m sure. But I started with live radio in college back in 1989 and that’s pretty much all I’ve ever done since. Certainly many of my interviews are pre-recorded because a lot of guests aren’t easily available during the live show time. But at least with another person on the line it’s a lot more spontaneous and lively.

So while the rise of podcasting and the easy access to high quality recording tools has leveled the playing field for people to produce their own radio-like programming, I am still convinced there is no substitute for a live multi-kilowatt transmitter. Perhaps live webcasting comes close–especially in terms of spontaneity–but the reach of a WNUR in terms of broadcast listenership could bankrupt someone with bandwidth bills on the ‘net.

Despite the minor glitches the WNUR studios are the nicest I’ve had the opportunity to work in and truly blow away most commercial stations aside from the major market leaders. And the staff at WNUR are a great bunch, and I’m having a great time getting to know them. It’s a true student run station–a dying breed, as we discussed on tonight’s show–and the students proudly put on an independent, challenging, independent and interesting set of programming.

And a big thanks must go out to Andrew Gothelf who stepped up and volunteered to assist with mediageek as soon as the show got scheduled one week ago. I’m looking forward to his contributions to the program.

A New Chapter for the Radioshow

In the best blogger style, I’m remembering to post this only hours in advance…

Beginning tonight at 9 PM CDT the mediageek radioshow begins a new chapter with a new station. Tonight is the debut of the mediageek radioshow on WNUR 89.3 FM, the radio station of Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, serving the north side of Chicago and the North Shore suburbs. As I’ve mentioned on the blog and radioshow, I moved to Chicago back in April, saying a teary goodbye to the studios of community radio WEFT in Champaign, IL where the show got its start. Since then I’ve been producing the show at home, while it continues to air on WEFT and a dozen other stations.

Besides the change to a new station and city the show now moves to an hour-long format. Because the current mediageek affiliates only have a half-hour set aside for the program I’ll be doing the show in two segments. The first half-hour will be much like the current show, with news headlines and feature interviews.

With the second half-hour I’m planning to take a looser approach. When there are live guests who are willing to stick around the full hour I’d like to take live listener phone calls. WNUR has a live web stream, so this opportunity will be available not just to folks listening in the Chicago area. I’d also like to spice things up by featuring more audio collage, sonic art and broadcast things that have less to do with policy and regulation. I’ll post the second half-hour for podcast and online listening, too.

So, tonight’s the first trial balloon in the new approach. I’m glad that my pal and frequent guest John Anderson will be along for the ride via phone from Champaign.

Tune in tonight, Sept. 25, from 9 – 10 PM to WNUR 89.3 FM, Evanston, IL, and online at WNUR.org.