Pirate radio: finally an exhibition sport at the Olympics?

After many difficult years of training, radio pirates and media activists have finally reached the pinnacle of radio sport.   We can only hope that someone gives these Reporters sans Frontiers a gold medal, and not just a quick trip back home!

check out this story for more details:

http://www.nysun.com/blogs/beijing-bulletin/2008/08/pirate-radio-group-claims-first-independ.html

and to hear an English version of the broadcast:

http://www.therawfeed.com/2008/08/pirate-radio-in-beijing-calls-for-free.html

Pirate Radio USA will Screen at the Lotus Petal Cinema in Nashville, IN July 24 - 28th.

Visit lotuspetalcinema.com for showtimes.

Hooray!

It was great to get such a swell turnout at both screenings, so winning this prize was certainly icing on the cake.  Thank you to all the fine folks at STIFF for an excellent film festival, fun parties, great films, and did I mention that trophy?  Well, they don’t call it a Stiffie for nothing!

Thank you also to all our friends, family, and crew who came to the screenings—it’s a lot of fun watching it with people who laugh in all the right places!

HEY!  We’re in our own town!  Come see Pirate Radio USA at a film festival, it’s fun!  Seattle’s True Independent Film Festival is held at multiple venues throughout Seattle. It is a celebration of off-beat independent film from the Northwest and the rest of the world. Combined with our concurrent companion Music and Stand-Up Comedy festival STIFF Licks, it features the best independent entertainment in the entire city.  Check out the rest of the schedule and even buy tickets at: http://stiff.bside.com/2008/schedule

TWO SCREENING DATES: 

Saturday, June 7 at 1:30 PM at the Jewelbox Theater

Monday, June 9 at 7:00 PM at the Capitol Hill Arts Center 

Want to know what people are really into? To get to know striking subcultures, human obsessions and political and social realities? The Shoot Me Film Festival in The Hague shows the world from a realistic perspective. Every year the festival presents original stories, told through the images of original filmmakers.

The unexpected locations (from a mystical chapel to a former sex cinema) and the special themed programmes make this festival an experience not to be missed.

Pirate Radio USA will screen twice during the festival:

Tuesday June 17, 20:15 @ Steezzz Me AND Saturday June 21, 12:30 @ Sarnami Huis

We will screen PIRATE RADIO USA on the last weekend of May in Amsterdam as part of the H3R3TIC! FESTIVAL.

For more info please check: www.videoinferno.nl

We will be screening Pirate Radio USA when it gets dark. Some snacks will be available, but feel free to bring food and beverages for yourself or to share. For more information please visit www.slant-house.com or email 917@slant-house.com

Fifth Annual Davis Film Festival, April 3-5, 2008.

www.davisfilmfest.org

Friday, April 4th Fundraiser for KDRT low power radio station

FCC Hearings happened here in Seattle Friday–and wow, what a turnout!

Over 800 people showed up, packing the hall, staying till after midnight to near uniformly testify against FCC plans to lift the media cross ownership ban.

FCC Councilman Michael Copps rocked the house, bemoaning the lack of hearing notice and hip checking FCC Chairman Martin’s last minute attempt to let Big Media get Bigger. Unfortunately, the board’s GOP tilt means Chairman Martin may well have the last say, regardless of what the people, or the facts say.

An FCC engineer on hand I spoke with marveled at the crowd, telling me it was the biggest crowd he had ever seen testifying before the FCC. Even the Governor spoke, and it all made front page news.

I testified too, to remind the commissioners, regardless of what they decide, that people are already doing something about big media being awful: making their own media. You can check out my speech, and everyone else’s on Pacifica, who broadcast the whole thing, live.

And now Congress is getting into the act, with the Senate threatening to take action to cut the FCC off at the pass.

Even mainstream media is beginning to admit the downside to increasingly homogenized media.

Round one for us, but the fight continues…. stay tuned…..

From Washington Post, via Free Press

By Frank Ahrens

Even though the media landscape has changed radically since the last time the Federal Communications Commission tried to alter its media-ownership rules, a hearing at the FCC yesterday showed that the debate remains as heated as ever.

A range of social, political and consumer groups that successfully petitioned a federal court to throw out the FCC’s 2003 attempt to relax ownership rules is once again fighting to keep limits on how many radio and television stations conglomerates can buy.

The groups testified as the five-member commission works to update its ownership rules to the court’s satisfaction, a task it hopes to accomplish soon.

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