Category: Radio

CBS Radio blocks online streams

CBS Radio has started selectively blocking online access to its stations. Radio.com on a browser works, but I use a Logitech Squeezebox Radio in my bedroom. This is what I hear when I try to listen to WBZ-Boston.

[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Aug/CBS_radio.mp3|titles=CBS Radio blocking stations]

Tunein.com now redirects to Radio.com, which doesn’t work with a Roku media player. I don’t know or care who CBS Radio is making happy by doing this, but it’s not me, and I have no intention of returning to AM radio to hear WBZ in the house.

Follow-up: There’s a workaround. I used the URL that’s been working in the Chumby.

In living color

RCA CEO David Sarnoff was a ruthless businessman. His great insight and accomplishment was seeing the potential of broadcasting as an entertainment medium and making network radio and television a reality. But Sarnoff didn’t hesitate to steal technology, as he did from Philo T. Farnsworth, and he crushed the great inventor Edwin Armstrong, who had been a close friend.

Having said that, RCA’s engineers did an exemplary job of creating the all-electronic NTSC color television system that was backwards-compatible with existing black & white sets. It was Ampex, however, that introduced b&w video tape recording in 1956. Two years later, RCA modified an Ampex deck so it could record in color, and the amazing results are in this video. If only this technology had been available during WWII, we would have an entirely different historical perception of the era.

Information on the restoration of this historic recording is at this link.

Smile, it’s radio

A UK study by the Radio Advertising Bureau says that — surprise! — radio is great. Better than watching TV, and better than surfing the net. Despite the lack of impartiality, I think the study’s conclusion is right. At least for me it is.

As I’ve said many times, I’m a fan of BBC Radio 2, but I also enjoy listening to BBC Radio 4, “a speech station for curious minds.” There are lots of great documentaries and all sorts of dramatizations of great breadth and often depth, like Brian (friend of the blog) Sibley’s adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s strange, densely-packed novel Titus Groan. The production is excellent, with lots of aural treats, but this is not a programme that can be appreciated casually, so I recommend listening on headphones. The BBC doesn’t keep everything online forever, but for an intricate series like Titus Groan one would hope they’ll continue to make it available for some weeks.

The Wright frame of mind

On WBZ-Boston radio Monday night laconic, existential comedian Steven Wright chatted with his fellow Emerson College alum, Steve LeVeille. Wright was scheduled to be on for just the first hour, but he stayed for two. (I wasn’t going to sit at the computer any later than that, Samjay!) Here’s the first hour, and I think I got all of the commercials out, but I left in Mike Love singing about pretty trees.

[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Jun/leveille.mp3|titles=WBZ-Boston: Steve LeVeille with Steven Wright]

Barnes is back with his Back Pages

Just in time to celebrate Bob Dylan turning 70 on Tuesday, Barnes Newberry returns to radio with My Back Pages. When? Tomorrow morning at 8! Barnes says…

Okay folks, looks like it is ON tomorrow at 8 am for the debut of My Back Pages with Barnes Newberry. Please join us online at mvyradio.com to pre-celebrate the 70th birthday of His Bobness! Thanks for all your early good wishes (to us both!) and of course, a big thanks to MVY.

WMVY is a commercial FM station on Martha’s Vineyard, and mvyradio is a public Net-only station, and that’s where Barnes will be. It has high-quality (96k) audio, and I’ll be listening on my excellent-sounding Logitech Squeezebox Radio. Note: mvyradio will be posting the complete Neil Innes show I attended last Saturday, A People’s Guide to World Domination, in its archives, and I’ll link to it when available.

Follow-up: Well, that was disappointing. There was a technical screw-up at the station and the show didn’t play over the live stream. It can be heard at this link.