Archive for May, 2006

Shock jock goes too far

Wednesday, May 10th, 2006

As someone who listens almost exclusively to community radio and NPR, it can sometimes be shocking to be reminded of the standard that commercial radio can sometimes drop to here in the States. Of course not all commercial radio is quite this coarse or vile, but that really doesn't seem ...

Media consolidation in Galway

Monday, May 8th, 2006

A few weeks old at this point, but Owen pointed me towards the news that the Connacht Tribune newspaper group has bought Galway Bay FM, the sole commercial radio station in Galway. Had we the type of cross-ownership rules currently present in the United States, this would not have been possible. ...

Digital radio standards

Monday, May 8th, 2006

Harry Helms has been plugging away on IBOC's failure to attract popular interest or support, and now claims that it's more or less 'put up or shut up' time for the technology. I'm reminded of Enda O'Kane's analysis of moves to implement DAB in Ireland, where he notes that it's ...

Irish birth rate highest in Europe

Monday, May 8th, 2006

"Baby Boomers" na hEorpa is how Foinse is describing the fact that Ireland's birthrate is by far the highest in Europe, at 15.2 births per thousand per annum. Of course, this is a somewhat different measure than the total births per woman (in her lifetime), where I think we recently ...

Comreg shuts church-run ‘public address’-style pirate radio stations

Monday, May 8th, 2006

Long time funferal readers may recall that last year, under the Scagaire moniker, I authored a submission to Comreg on spectrum management. So much, so wonky. However, one of the main issues I concentrated on in that document was Comreg's proposed response to the existance of pirate broadcast operations based ...

Another UIUC freesheet

Sunday, May 7th, 2006

Last Monday, May Day, as I passed a newspaper bin on campus that usually holds copies of a conservative freesheet I noticed that it held instead a number of copies of a glossy publication that featured the unlikely question "Where is the Revolution?" It turns out that this is an issue ...

Community TV comes to Ireland

Sunday, May 7th, 2006

Last Thursday the BCI signed a contract with the first community TV station in Ireland, DCTV.DCTV will offer a range of means by which the community can learn about, manage and participate in television. Participation in the station and programming output will be guided by the founding objectives of ...

Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic

Sunday, May 7th, 2006

Seemingly a deckchair from the Titanic is being auctioned off today. It sounds like the setup to a joke of some sort....

Discrimination against Travellers and Roma in European schools

Sunday, May 7th, 2006

The EU Observer notes an EUMC report on discrimination faced by Roma and Traveller children in the educational system, particularly in Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic:The EUMC suggested that national governments should focus on introducing more Roma related materials to schools, such as history and language books, and get ...

Johnnny’s on YouTube

Saturday, May 6th, 2006

A reader pointed me towards this tribute to Johnny Massacre on YouTube, featuring some amazing footage of his act. He really was an amazing street artist to have on the streets of Galway. Stuck now in Chambana, Illinois, where street performances are effectively illegal, the street musicians and artists of ...