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May 27, 2011

Phil Redo to oversee news and culture for WGBH-FM

The new managing director of news and culture for WGBH-FM/89.7 in Boston is Phil Redo. He'll guide the overall strategy of the NPR station's news and cultural programs and oversee WGBH-FM's editorial partnership with Public Radio International. Redo worked for WGBH as an independent media consultant and was instrumental last year in its purchase of WCRB-FM/99.5, the station said in a release. Redo was formerly vice president and general manager of Greater Media Boston, a five-station FM radio group, and v.p. of operations and strategy at WNYC, New York Public Radio.

Time-shifted radio arrives with DAR.fm

Here's a tantilizing development: a free TiVo for radio. That’s the promise of DAR.fm (for Digital Audio Recorder), a Web site that lists every single radio show on 1,800 AM and FM stations across the country. The New York Times reports that listeners can "search, sort, slice and dice those listings" by genre, radio station or search phrase, then request the program and "shortly thereafter, an e-mail message lets you know that your freshly baked show is ready for listening."

"It lets you time shift, of course, but also presents the entire universe of radio broadcasting in one tidy menu," it adds. "No longer must you gripe about the creeping commercialism that shut down, say, your town’s NPR affiliate or ’70s reggae station. Suddenly there are 1,800 radio stations in your town — and they program their shows according to your schedule, not theirs."

Public stations producing live webcasts from Primavera, Sasquatch Music festivals

Public media stations are producing live webcasts from two major music festivals this Memorial Day weekend. New Jersey's WFMU returns to Barcelona, Spain, for the Primavera Sound Festival, presenting two days of live concerts that began at 3 p.m. ET today with Suicide, the influential protopunk duo. (Listen and chat with other music fans here.) Seattle's KEXP and NPR Music launch three days of coverage of the Gorge Amphitheatre's Sasquatch Music Festival tomorrow at 3:25 ET.

This is the first time that NPR Music has taken its web listeners to Sasquatch. In addition to KEXP, three radio stations are participating in the festivalcast: KUT in Austin, Texas; Oregon's OPB Music; and The Current from Minneapolis.

WFMU has produced live coverage from Primavera for three years, and offers an archive of festival performances going back to 2009 here.

Supporters cheer as trustees approve new PBS station in Florida

After the University of Central Florida Board of Trustees approved the new WUCF-PBS on Thursday (May 26), "a small crowd at the meeting applauded loudly and cried out in celebration," according to the Orlando Sentinel. "We see this as an opportunity to step up and serve the community in a new way," said Grant Heston, UCF's assistant vice president for news, information and UCFTV. "We look forward to finalizing this with PBS in the coming days." The university is partnering with Brevard Community College in Cocoa. BCC operates public TV station WBCC, a secondary PBS station. Through an exisitng partnership with UCF, BCC broadcasts UCFTV. UCF and BCC have been working eight weeks on a deal to present full PBS service in Orlando to replace WMFE-TV, which is being sold to religious broadcaster Daystar.