Radio reprieve

Webcasters and internet radio listeners are breathing a sigh of relief today after it was announced that SoundExchange executive director John Simson had agreed to allow small and non-commercial internet radio operators to continue streaming past the July 15 deadline imposed by the Copyright Royalty Board.
The CRB had decided to foist new royalty fees on webcasters that would have likely put most of them out of business despite objections by legions of listeners, artists (who would not likely ever be heard by many people) and a handful of members of Congress.
Webcasters got a 60-day postponement of the implementation of the CRB decision while parties attempt to come up with a compromise.
Read tons more about this issue at Kurt Hanson’s RAIN newsletter and at SaveNetRadio.
Thanks to Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA).
I don’t know what I would do without my RadioParadise.

So this is why Howard Stern keeps interrupting KKJZ-FM

So I’m going along listening to jazz on KKJZ-FM (88.1) when, all of a sudden, Howard Stern and Co. take over the frequency for a minute or so. WTF! I wondered what was going on … and now I know.

The L.A Times reports that it’s the RF modulators for people’s in-car Sirius Satellite Radio devices:

The invasion is caused by wireless devices that people use to listen to their portable satellite radio receiver, iPod or other MP3 player through their car radios. These devices, called modulators, are sometimes so powerful that they inadvertently send signals into nearby vehicles such as Lockwood’s.

The interference has been a major problem for NPR because many “plug-and-play” modulators come preset to the 88.1 FM frequency, which is used by 36 NPR stations, including WXLU in Peru, N.Y., which serves the Burlington area, and KKJZ, which broadcasts from the Cal State Long Beach campus.

…

Sirius and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. acknowledged in Securities and Exchange Commission filings this year that some of the devices packaged with their radios were too powerful. Both said they had been working with the FCC to address the problem. This summer and fall, XM and Sirius announced new FCC certification for some of the portable radios.

On the other hand, if you want some free Howard Stern in the morning, just find a driver listening to it in the car, tune to 88.1 FM and tail him/her.

Points of order: While KKJZ is a public radio station, it isn’t a National Public Radio station. First of all, NPR is a producer and distributor of programming, not an owner of stations:

NPR serves a growing audience of 26 million Americans each week in partnership with more than 800 independently operated, noncommercial public radio stations. Each NPR Member Station serves local listeners with a distinctive combination of national and local programming.

And KKJZ, owned by Cal State Long Beach, doesn’t offer any NPR content that I know of. The station has been run since 1987 by a nonprofit group called Pacific Public Radio, which the university is currently in the process of dumping for radio station owner Sol Levine (KMZT, KKGO) in the hopes of making more money in the public radio game. (What? It’s about making money?)