“Woody’s Children,” Bob Sherman’s folk radio program that airs Sundry afternoon from 4-5 p.m. on WFUV in New York, marks its 40th anniversary in January, while “The Session,” an hour-long Celtic music program that Ron Olesko hosted from the studios of WFDU in New Jersey, bowed out Jan. 2 after a nine-year run. [To read the entire article, click on the headline.]

In this guest commentary, Ron Olesko, host of WFDU-FM's long-running folk music radio programs "Traditions" and "The Session" and president of the Hurdy Gurdy Folk Music Club in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, expresses dismay over the recent decision by the management of XM/Sirius Radio to give its folk music channel a "vacation" for the holiday season. "I'm hoping that this is just a simple error in judgment," writes Olesko, and "that satellite radio can set itself on the right track once again and live up to the promise that created the need." Maintains Olesko, "Should the merger [of XM and Sirius] turn their offerings into a mirror of the commercial mess that has passed for terrestrial radio in recent years, we will have missed what may be our best opportunity to showcase creativity." [To read Ron Olesko's commentary in its entirety, click on the headline.]

Tribes Hill, a nonprofit organization in New York’s lower Hudson Valley region that seeks to unite and encourage a diverse group of musicians and their patrons to find community both personally and musically, has conferred honorary lifetime membership on John Platt, host of Sunday Breakfast on WFUV-FM in New York. Platt, who has hosted the show since the spring of 1997, was honored during Tribes Hill’s annual meeting and hootenanny, June 14, at Hammond House in Valhalla. He shares this “special status” with Pete Seeger, the organization’s only other lifetime member. [To read the entire article, click on the headline.]

Highly influential Canadian folksinger-songwriter Stan Rogers died 25 years ago, June 2, in an airplane fire while en route home after performing at the Kerrville Folk Festival in the Texas Hill Country. On Sunday, June 1,in recognition of this sad anniversary, WFDU-FM in Teaneck, New Jersey will rebroadcast “Remembering Stan Rogers,” a radio documentary that Ron Olesko, host of its long-running “Traditions” program, produced in 2003. The three-hour music-filled documentary, airing from 3 to 6 p.m. ET at 89.1 FM in the New York City area and online at www.wfdu.fm, takes a look at Stan Rogers’ life and music. It features, as Olesko puts it, “full songs, not just snippets,” interspersed with commentary from his family and friends (including producer & musician Paul Mills and musician Grit Laskin), and Rogers himself. [To read the entire article, click on the headline.]

Rich Warren, longtime host of The Midnight Special, was named as Folk Broadcaster of the Year during the Third Annual Folk Alliance Awards, held on Feb. 20, the opening night of the 2oth Annual International Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, Tennessee. Balloting was by members of the North American Folk Music & Dance Alliance. The Midnight Special, which Warren has hosted for nearly 25 years, originates from the studios of WFMT (98.7 FM) in Chicago, Illinois, where it airs Saturdays from 9 p.m. to midnight (ET) and also streams online. A two-hour national edition of the popular show is syndicated at various times on dozens of radio stations across the country and also airs on XM Satellite Radio’s channel 15 (The Village). [To read the entire article, click on the headline.]

Five longtime hosts of folk radio programs have been nominated for Folk DJ of the Year in the Third Annual Folk Alliance Awards. The honoree will be named during a Feb. 20 awards program on the opening night of the 20th Annual International Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, Tennessee that runs through Feb. 24. The awards program will be broadcast live over XM Satellite Radio. [To read the entire article, click on the headline].