Radio Days! The Audio Ecotone for Aug. 22, 2025

This past Wednesday was National Radio Day, the annual celebration of radio broadcasting. The date commemorates the first daily broadcast by the station 8MK in Detroit. Set up in the Detroit News building and operating under an amateur radio license, 8MK's daily "Detroit News Radiophone" broadcast news interspersed with music from phonograph records. Early broadcasts also included updates of the Jack Dempsey/Billy Miske heavyweight boxing match and play-by-play updates of the 1920 World Series. 8MK eventually received a commerical license with the call letters WBL and then WWJ, under which it broadcasts to this day.

On this week's Audio Ecotone, we celebrate our favorite broadcast medium with selections from Joy Division, The Blasters, Steve Early, the Southern Mountain Boys, Raphael Saadiq and more! Tune in live Friday @ 3 p.m. Pacific on 95.7 FM in Davis or kdrt.org online. Replays on Saturdays 6-7 p.m. and Tuesdays 7-8 a.m.

Have questions or comments about the show? Good or bad -- preferably good, but we like them all. Drop a line to @eddy-owt.bsky.social‬ on Bluesky or the.eddy.owt@gmail.com.