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This also helps to explain things: https://www.kcrw.com/news-cult...

Here in the States, National Public Radio has an iPhone app, and my local station, the uber-cool KCRW, also has one.

Granted, neither of those apps provide motorcycle information, but NPR is, in part, publically funded.

My own favorite is http://www.kcrw.com/ because of their live performances. Some great live performances in their studio in their Morning Becomes Eclectic archives

I would just like to add to parent poster's informative post, since he/she touched on the local affiliates. Some are great, and some as stated, are maybe too narrowly focused or play too little NPR broadcast content to have wide listenership.

So I just wanted to throw in a plug for a superb local affiliate in the L.A. area based out of Santa Monica (from Santa Monica College), KCRW. They have a great selection of shows of all genres of music, excellent DJ's, and play a LOT of NPR syndicated shows.

They have a full online radio station, with streaming at: http://www.kcrw.com/

So you don't have to live in the L.A. area to listen to a great NPR station.

Personally, NPR is the ONLY thing I can stand to listen to in the car, literally. I just cannot stand having people yelling and screaming at me about sales on furniture and playing all kinds of horrible sound effects and bad pop music, with endless commercials and bad radio DJ's talking about garbage. Clear Channel needs to crawl in a hole and die.

True, in fact LRC (Left Right and Center) is an NPR program dedicated to discussing the issues from all angles.

kcrw.com (I just listen to it on the radio, but they have an online counterpart.)

A lot of new (I assume, non-RIAA) music gets filtered to the American mainstream through here (e.g. Coldplay). Jesca Hoop is the latest indie star to come up through their farm system. Also discovered interesting DJ/mashup stuff like The Arbiters there. ("Sure Side of Fame" is a little masterpiece of the genre.)

Unfortunately, I suspect most the unknowns who do really break through eventually end up in the RIAA's net.

You sound like Robert Rodriguez, before his checks from the Weinstein's started to clear. He STILL goes on endlessly about how you only need a few people to make a movie, and how it's such a personal experience for him and how digital technology has changed everything, while he spends his $53 million dollar budgets.

Maybe the DV cineastes are the Incas! They are quaint and provincial and riven by internal divisions; they often venerate their leaders, living and dead. They have many resources, but lack some critical innovations of the Spaniards; many among them are easily co-opted with blandishments of power and money. They have gold, all the better for the Spaniards to smelt into crucifixes! They'll change cinema for ever in the way they changed the Spanish; they got a little darker (a little).

I love The Diane Rehm Show for news and discussion of current events, especially on Fridays when they do a two-hour panel / call-in discussion of the week's current events.

Left, Right and Center is also a good, weekly discussion-style show over current events. Less listener interaction and too short, but still, generally good commentary.

And Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me is a hilarious weekly quiz / comedy show about current events and pop culture.

I catch all three of these, week-in, week-out. They're fantastic.

I live in West Hollywood and so I get excellent reception of the Santa Monica CC based KCRW [kcrw.com], mentioned in the article. KCRW is fairly lucky in that it's flagship show, Morning Becomes Eclectic [kcrw.com], has become one of the most influential music programs in Los Angeles in terms of generating buzz for unsigned or independent artists. If you're looking for some of the best in new talent, for something different and something very much eclectic than MBE at KCRW is one of the best places to turn to when you're in Los Angeles. As such, KCRW is very much in the thick of things in terms of the current artistic scene in the Southland and they get tickets to literally everything.

As part of their pledge drive they offer quite a few things to new and returning donors. Among these are tickets to normally sold out shows at places like the Whiskey A Go-Go, the Viper Room and the House of Blues. The minimum level of donation is $25 and for that you are eligible for a free pair of tickets every ninety days; if you're at all into sampling the local and not so local music scene becoming a member of KCRW is a no-brainer. As an added bonus, each session has a target goal and when certain numbers have been reached (100, half the target goal, the goal itself, etc.) they give away iPods, travel packages and pretty damn good CD or ticket packages.

The constant interruption in programming is still pretty annoying but KCRW does a great job of keeping you listening by dangling shiny, shiny things in front of you. I'm not saying the Eu Claire affiliate can do the same thing, but I am saying that pledge drives don't have to be the kind of thing that makes you turn the radio off.

Finally, I've found that those who donated to KCRW do so equally for the goods as well as for their genuine love of the content. My opinion is that while podcasting may potentially damage some of the business model, people are still going to donate even if they can listen at their leisure at their computers. Tickets are sweet but I donated because I cared to do so; KCRW has made my morning commutes (somewhat) bearable and you can't put a price ($25) on that.

I live in West Hollywood and so I get excellent reception of the Santa Monica CC based KCRW [kcrw.com], mentioned in the article. KCRW is fairly lucky in that it's flagship show, Morning Becomes Eclectic [kcrw.com], has become one of the most influential music programs in Los Angeles in terms of generating buzz for unsigned or independent artists. If you're looking for some of the best in new talent, for something different and something very much eclectic than MBE at KCRW is one of the best places to turn to when you're in Los Angeles. As such, KCRW is very much in the thick of things in terms of the current artistic scene in the Southland and they get tickets to literally everything.

As part of their pledge drive they offer quite a few things to new and returning donors. Among these are tickets to normally sold out shows at places like the Whiskey A Go-Go, the Viper Room and the House of Blues. The minimum level of donation is $25 and for that you are eligible for a free pair of tickets every ninety days; if you're at all into sampling the local and not so local music scene becoming a member of KCRW is a no-brainer. As an added bonus, each session has a target goal and when certain numbers have been reached (100, half the target goal, the goal itself, etc.) they give away iPods, travel packages and pretty damn good CD or ticket packages.

The constant interruption in programming is still pretty annoying but KCRW does a great job of keeping you listening by dangling shiny, shiny things in front of you. I'm not saying the Eu Claire affiliate can do the same thing, but I am saying that pledge drives don't have to be the kind of thing that makes you turn the radio off.

Finally, I've found that those who donated to KCRW do so equally for the goods as well as for their genuine love of the content. My opinion is that while podcasting may potentially damage some of the business model, people are still going to donate even if they can listen at their leisure at their computers. Tickets are sweet but I donated because I cared to do so; KCRW has made my morning commutes (somewhat) bearable and you can't put a price ($25) on that.

TWiT: This Week in Tech (former Tech TV Screensavers)
dl.tv (former Tech TV Screensavers)
diggnation (again, former Tech TV Screensavers)
CreativeCOW.net (Digital Media)
Shields and Brooks (Newshour Political Podcast)
NPR Technology (collected stories about tech from the previous week)
KCRW's The Treatment
Ricky Gervais (BBC's The Office, Extras)

Surely you mean the radio play? If you haven't listened, give it a try - it's by far the best version, those radio pictures are just funnier!

Available from the interweb:

http://www.kcrw.com/cgi-bin/db/kcrw.pl?show_code=h g&tmplt_type=Program

Er, do you know about this?

http://www.kcrw.com/podcast/

m.

For some folks stateside, we have KCRW out of Santa Monica, California. Their music channel is out of this world.

I assume what everyone is talking about when they dismiss radio as being teh suck is commerical radio. Personally, I stopped listening to commercial FM long before it became the province of Clear Channel and friends.

What is readily available on FM that is not commerical includes the following:

• NPR News
• NPR Programming
• Jazz
• Classical

If you're interested in music only, you may want to start with something like this station if you don't have something similar in your own backyard. Most likely more interesting than what you're listening to at the moment.

Then, of course, if you're not the musical type and have a preference for animated conversations in which people share their opinions with others who have identical opinions, there's always AM radio.

Local Los Angeles radio station KCRW does podcasting now, and they've got some great in-house shows, like "Left, Right, and Center," and "To the Point with Warren Olney."

Local Los Angeles radio station KCRW does podcasting now, and they've got some great in-house shows, like "Left, Right, and Center," and "To the Point with Warren Olney."

Perhaps instead of a mandatory licence fee you could consider a "community-supported" style of broadcast, based on voluntary contributions from users who see value in the service. It's neither conventionally commercial, or mandatorily publicly funded.

Can such a thing actually work in practice? Well, one has only to look at KCRW in Los Angeles for an example of a community-supported station that is thriving. Their programming is significantly better than the drivel on regular commercial radio, and people are willing to support that. With the advent of streaming internet radio they even tend to get large contributions from outside the state. IIRC KCRW isn't even the only LA-based community-supported radio - there's at least one Jazz station that I remember hearing, and there may be others.

That last one really get me. How can you even watch Fox News and come up with that?

Oh yeah, there's an interview at the end of "To the Point" with the director, Steve Kull.

...almost without exception, all the stuff the RIAA is pushing is crap. Unlistenable crap. I just rely on my existing collection for music, sometimes picking up CD's directly from bands' websites (fuck you, RIAA, no cut for you) or mp3.com back when it existed. I can't even listen to the radio any more it's such shite.

I agree about mainstream-marketed music. I do still find new music that I like, but mainly through other sources. I'll sound like an Amazon-shill for saying this, but after rating a few of my favorite CDs at Amazon, they've been pretty good at finding other stuff that I like and sometimes end up buying.

Also, the NPR radio station KCRW in Santa Monica, California, plays some interesting new music during their Morning Becomes Eclectic program. Certainly not everyone's taste, but new, fairly diverse, and generally not mainstream. If you're not lucky enough to live within range of their antennae, they broadcast on the web in MP3, RealAudio and Windows Media formats. There's a simulcast, a news-only stream, and a music-only stream.

For those who can't wait, there's an interview with Eric Idle [RealPlayer Audio] from yesterday's "Which Way, L.A.?" program on KCRW. Apparently, the Pythons want to cash in on the furor over "Passion of the Christ." In the interview, Eric claims he's a "lapsed anti-Catholic" and an "Alzhimer's agnostic" - great stuff!

KCRW baby !!! It has become my favorite station. Sometimes it is brilliant. Sometimes complete crap. Not the same thing over and over.

KCRW http://kcrw.com/

I'm sure they paid for the image, but I can't believe they didn't know what a bunch of Mac geeks we were at Getty! I knew that was a PhotoDisc image the second I saw it.

P.S., if anyone doubts the authenticity of Apple's 'Switch' people, I have verified at least one of them is real...

Really?

Including Tony Hawk?
Including Liza Richardson?
Including DJ Qbert?
Including Damon Wright?

The DJ Liza Richardson is a real DJ. (It looks like they've removed her video from the Apple site, but her letter of endorsement's still there.) She does a weekly radio show Satuday nights on KCRW called "The Drop". 7-9pm Pacific.

More info can be found on KCRW's website. Including live streaming broadcast of the shows. Here's her bio from that site.

DJ Qbert's real, too.

First I should mention that I think well-roundedness is vital to what one does with his technical knowledge, but is often cast aside as foolish and irrelevent by many in the tech industry.

Although the following doesn't answer your specific question, it responds to your general situation. I too am a commuting student, yet I am almost greatful for the commute. It provides me a time during which I can enjoy good music and catch up on news, social commentary, and american culture.

By good music, I mean independent, eclectic music, not the manufactured 2-dimensional garbage that's on every commercial radio station. Check out your college radio station. Also Crud Music Magazine and College Music Journal are both pretty good at identifying intelligent interesting music in the indie scene. The benefit of intelligent music is in terms of social education: enriching your knowledge of humanity and culture. Which of course, is very relevent when considering how you want to use your degree once you've graduated. Also, it sets you apart from the multitudes of geeks that <strikeout>don't understand</strikeout> "cannot be bothered with" culture.

Regarding talk/news radio, you should try listening to NPR. You might not agree with their website linking policies, but in general, they provide a free, high quality service.

<plug type="shameless">And if you live in L.A., you should check out KCRW. I haven't changed my radio dial since discovering them more than 2 years ago.</plug>

The complete playlist is here [woxy.com]

playlist? need I say more? :)

I listen to stations like RTR FM, my station 2RRR.

Our commercial stations are as bad as everywhere else.

While at work I occasionally tune into KCRW. NPR stuff is quite good, we don't have the core funding in Australia to do something similar, although some stations do carry NPR programs.

So it will be another kick ass soundtrack when it does get released.

cLive ;-)

KCRW, an LA NPR station, has been playing PSAs about this. They have a great page with a sample letter to your Congresscritter. And be sure to check out SaveInternetRadio.org. This is something the average non-slashdot-reader can understand far more than they can or will bother to comprehend DMCA, SSSCA, or the Russian who wrote software that let people read books, so there is a slight chance that the forces of ignorance won't take this round.

KCRW, an LA NPR station, has been playing PSAs about this. They have a great page with a sample letter to your Congresscritter. And be sure to check out SaveInternetRadio.org. This is something the average non-slashdot-reader can understand far more than they can or will bother to comprehend DMCA, SSSCA, or the Russian who wrote software that let people read books, so there is a slight chance that the forces of ignorance won't take this round.

KCRW is observing the silence, which should be VERY good publicity, since they are a VERY big market in LA (for a public radio station) and get pretty good ratings during drive time hours.

Here's the "To the Point" episode talking about it.

For all you Linus junkies out there in La La Land... you can hear it at 3:00pm PDT (that's one hour and fifteen minutes from now) on KCRW 89.9 Santa Monica

This story (RealAudio required) played today on KCRW's "Deadline Hollywood" radio news It was written by Charles Fleming and contains the usual inacuracies regarding DeCSS.

Although it pretty much hits the mark on how unpopular the MPAA is as a result of the lawsuit, and has a wry opinion that the "genie is out of the bottle", it uses the traditional (and incorrect) "decss lets you pirate dvds" rather than "decess is about playback control" framework for the issue.

Some Quotes:

...deCSS is to the dvd movie what mp3 is to recorded music. It enables the home consumer to copy, reproduce and trade movies downloaded over the Internet. Downloaded for Free.

These superhighway holdup men [Corley, et al]... may have legal protection. The studios argue that descrambling constitutes copyright theft. The other side will argue that descrambling allows consumers to make copies of dvds they already own and trade them with friends, which constitutes legal 'fair use.'

Someone out there wanna help convince them that they should tell the real story of what this case is about?

Click here for the Deadline Hollywood main page.