Behind the Transmitter: Differences in Archival Practices Between Nonprofit and Commercial Radio Stations

Abstract

Many radio collections within the United States are maintained in more informal program libraries and archives in hundreds of geographically dispersed broadcasting stations throughout the country. To assess the full extent of this problem and real risk posed to station-owned radio collections, this article assesses the results of a survey administered across twenty-seven nonprofit and commercial stations or corporate parent companies. Nonprofit stations, its findings suggest, are more likely to actively maintain their archives and do so in a manner that shows awareness of current archival standards, whereas commercial stations are less likely to exert active stewardship over their collections.

Keywords:

• Radio
• radio archives
• radio preservation
• audio preservation
• college radio

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest for this study.

Notes

1 Ray Edmondson, Audiovisual Archiving: Philosophy and Principles. (Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, April 2004), 31. Available online at https://www.fiafnet.org/images/tinyUpload/E-Resources/Official-Documents/Philosophy-of-Audiovisual-Archiving_UNESCO.pdf.

2 Edmondson, Audiovisual Archiving, 39.

3 Edmondson, Audiovisual Archiving, 39.

4 Edmondson, Audiovisual Archiving, 39.

5 Laura Schnitker, “Archives, Advocacy and Crowd-Sourcing: Towards a More Complete Historiography of College Radio,” Journal of Radio & Audio Media 23, no. 2 (2016): 347.

6 Shawn VanCour, “Locating the Radio Archive: New Histories, New Challenges,” Journal of Radio & Audio Media 23, no. 2 (2016): 396.

7 Noah Arceneaux, “Reflections on Radio History, Preservation, and Relevance,” American Journalism 33, no. 3 (2016): 342.

8 Brian Real, “From Colorization to Orphans: The Evolution of American Public Policy on Film Preservation,” The Moving Image 13, no. 1 (2013): 145.

9 Josh Shepperd, “Radio Preservation Task Force Conference: Sound History and the Logistics of Social Recognition,” Sounding Out, February 26, 2016. https://soundstudiesblog.com/2016/02/26/radio-preservation-task-force-conference-sound-history-and-the-logistics-of-social-recognition/.

10 Josh Shepperd, Amanda Keeler, and Chris Sterling, “Sound Recognition of Historical Visibility: The Radio Preservation Task Force of the Library of Congress: Introduction,” Journal of Radio and Audio Media 23, no. 2 (2016): 230.

11 In numerous conversations with the second author of this article, Shepperd has directly mentioned this intention to build a community similar to that which emerged from the Orphan Film Symposium for radio scholarship. He has mentioned Dan Streible, founder of the Orphan Film Symposium, as an inspiration for his work.

12 Shepperd, Keeler, and Sterling, “Sound Recognition,” 230.

13 Kathleen Battles and Eleanor Patterson, “Special Forum: Radio Preservation as Social Activism,” New Review of Film and Television Studies, 16, no. 4 (2018): 417.

14 Radio Preservation Task Force, “Radio Preservation Task Force Conference (2017),” Library of Congress, November 2–4, 2017. https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-recording-preservation-plan/publications-and-reports/radio-preservation-task-force-conference-2017/

15 Michael J. Socolow, “The Need to Preserve Commercial Radio: A Report from the Radio Preservation Task Force Commercial Caucus Meeting in Washington D.C. in 2017,” New Review of Film and Television Studies, 16, no. 4 (2018): 442–443.

16 Kat Cua, “Live On, Radio: Preserving the Soundtrack of Our Country, One Reel at a Time,” Vox, November 9, 2017. https://www.voxmagazine.com/magazine/live-on-radio-preserving-the-soundtrack-of-our-country-one/article_a20fc08e-c4ba-11e7-91d9-33b71d8cdde3.html

17 Josh Shepperd, “Radio Preservation Task Force Conference.”

18 Michael J. Socolow, “The C.B.S. Problem in American Radio Historiography,” Journal of Radio and Audio Media, 23, no. 2 (2016): 323–334.

19 For a history of this historical tension between the guiding principles of records managers and archivists, see Kathryn Scanlan, “ARMA v. SAA: The History and Heart of Professional Friction,” The American Archivist 74, no. 2 (2011): 428–450.

20 Sarah Baker, “Identifying Do-it-Yourself Places of Popular Music Preservation,” in Preserving Popular Music Heritage: Do-It-Yourself, Do-It-Together, edited by Sarah Baker (New York: Routledge, 2015), 10.

21 Ken Garner, “Ripping the Pith from the Peel: Institutional and Internet Cultures of Archiving Pop Music Radio,” The Radio Journal 10, no. 2 (2012): 91.

22 Schnitker, Laura, “Archives, Advocacy and Crowd-Sourcing,” 347.

23 Edmondson, Audiovisual Archiving, 20.

24 Edmondson, Audiovisual Archiving, 20.

25 Edmondson, Audiovisual Archiving, 56.

26 Edmondson, Audiovisual Archiving, 57.

27 Edmondson, Audiovisual Archiving, 37.

28 Edmondson, Audiovisual Archiving, 39.

29 Socolow, “The Need to Preserve Commercial Radio,” 443

30 Socolow, “The Need to Preserve Commercial Radio,” 444

31 Radio Preservation Task Force, “Radio Preservation Task Force 2: Commercial Caucus,” Library of Congress, November 4, 2017. https://loc.gov/item/webcast-8265.

32 Socolow, “The Need to Preserve Commercial Radio,” 444.

33 The number of “responses” here is for the total number of stations or corporate entities represented. However, in a limited number of cases the authors received more than one response from an organization. As an example, a station manager filled out the survey before also asking the station’s media librarian to do so. In these and similar instances the authors combined these into a single response.

34 Connoisseur Media purchased both of these stations and moved their broadcast operations to their Milford offices after the completion of this study. The authors chose not to retroactively consolidate the Cumulus and Connoisseur responses, but this purchase shows that radio consolidation continues unabated.

35 Radio Preservation Task Force, “Commercial Caucus.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Falcone

Michael Falcone is a recent graduate of the Master of Information and Library Science (MLIS) program at Southern Connecticut State University. He spent much of the past eight years playing drums in Speedy Ortiz, sharing stages with the likes of Wilco, Liz Phair, The Breeders, Foo Fighters, and Stephen Malkmus. The band received a Rolling Stone feature in May 2015. An active alumnus of his college station WXCI in Danbury, Connecticut, Michael hosts Late Night Noise every Monday; he also currently programs WXCI After Hours, their automated overnight block. One of his radio shifts from June 2004 was described in Piper Kerman’s memoir Orange is the New Black.

B. Real

Brian Real, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Information and Library and Information Science at Southern Connecticut State University. He holds a PhD in Information Studies and an MLIS from the University of Maryland. His research is split between analyses of the modern social impact of public libraries and the historical impact of federal policy on film preservation. Dr. Real has published in The Moving Image, Library Quarterly, Public Library Quarterly, Information Technology and Libraries, and Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television.

Y. Q. Liu

Yan Quan Liu, Ph.D. is a Professor of Information and Library Science at Southern Connecticut State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is an author of over one hundred papers in the areas of information and library science.