If you’re a Christian, nothing jumpstarts your day better than Christ-centered words or worshipful music on your radio. Christian radio steers your mind and your heart in the right direction. We also have satellite radio and streaming. If my station loses its signal, I have options. But back in 1910, just after The U.S. Patent Office awarded Marconi a patent for the invention of radio, (later revoked and awarded to Tesla), people were lucky to get any signal at all – certainly not in their cars, and especially not in their horse-drawn buggies!
In this blog, part two of our series, we go back to the beginning. Take a look back at Part One.
THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS
From 1906 to 1920-ish, a hodgepodge of wireless systems began cropping up under the common name “radio”. Many of them were church owned. Remember the old saying, “The Devil Is in the Details?” Well unfortunately, it was true for Christian Broadcasting. With the expansion of God-centered radio came untold torrents of legal wrangling. Education-based broadcasters and religion-based broadcasters fought over frequencies and struggled to define nebulous terms like “common good” and “entertainment”. Federal battles took place over such terminology, resulting in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, along with creeds, faiths, and the (still controversial) distinction between religion and education. The need for law and order was obvious. Out of necessity, federal regulation was finally defined by The Radio Act of 1927, which eventually lead to the formation of the Federal Radio Commission (FRC).
In the 1920’s, as the battle for radio frequencies raged on, Secretary of Commerce Herbert C. Hoover, made valiant attempts to try and rectify regulatory power, commercial domestic broadcast services and interference problems, but his efforts were nearly fruitless. The Department of Commerce simply didn’t have enough political power. There seemed to be no way to restore order. These were “wild west” times for radio.
The Radio Act of 1927 was created to lasso everything into a neat, comprehensible package, transferable after one year to the Secretary of Commerce. Radio regulation was handed over to the Federal Radio Commission, which gave them the power to deny broadcasting licenses, and to assign frequencies and power levels for each licensee. In 1934, the FRC was replaced by the FCC, which allowed for greater control and accountability to Congress.
GOD’S WORD, GOD’S POWER, GOD’S PLAN, GOD’S WORK
Here’s a tip of the hat—or a high-five—to some of the first radio stations to reach their community for Christ. Many of the hundreds-plus early stations sold out to commercial interests or simply folded, but there are a few who remain. We’ll cover a sample of these hardy entrepreneurs.
KDKA:It was a cold December morning in 1920 when the Calvary Baptist Church of Pittsburgh broadcasted its first Sunday worship service over KDKA. Hot on their heels were Paul Rader, Charles Fuller, Donald Grey Barnhouse and other pastors and evangelists. Fast forward five years. There were 600 radio stations operating in the United States by 1925 and only sixty-three of them were church owned, generally established by neighboring congregations specifically to strengthen local ministries.
PILLAR OF FIRE INC.– 880 kHz / 1500 watts. KPOF AM91 is Denver’s oldest local, listener-supported Christian radio station. They broadcast from the Big Red Castle which was built in 1893. Pillar of Fire Church acquired the castle and surrounding property in 1920 and they’re in full swing to this day.
FIRST METHODIST CHURCH OF LAPEER– 1500 kHz / 100 watts. They began broadcasting on December 6, 1926, via a homemade transmitter in the Methodist Protestant Church. Many radio ministries only operated on Sundays, and FMC was no exception. They are now WMPC, owned and operated by the Calvary Bible Church of Lapeer, Michigan. (Hence the letters WMPC). The church moved to its current location and changed the name to Calvary Bible Church. People still credit WMPC for being the oldest continuously operating Christian radio station in the United States.
KFGQ – A husband and wife operated a small radio station out of Boone Biblical College at 1310 kHz / 100 watts. Former resident Mary McConnell remembered them fondly on Ancestry.com:
“I grew during the 1940’s and 50’s across the street from the Boone Biblical College. This was a orphan’s home, and a home for the elderly. They had their own church and radio station called KFGQ. I believe they still have an FM radio station.”
MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE started on 1080 kHz with 500 watts. They began broadcasting experimentally on September 5, 1941. Many credit them with being the country’s first non-commercial FM station.
KIIS FM: Have you heard of KIIS FM in L.A.? Believe it or not, they used to be KRKD, dedicated to evangelistic programming for the International Church of the Four Square Gospel. The Church continued its programming on KFSG-FM, which it purchased in 1949.
FAMILY LIFE RADIO– Listener-supported from the start
For young Warren Bolthouse, bringing Christ-centered Christian radio to his community in Jackson, Michigan was an exciting challenge. He had rigged together a transmission system with telephone wires, and the extent of his reach was limited to his neighborhood. In 1961, Warren began producing programs out of their basement. Shows like “Teen Time,” and “Happy Day Express” made up 20 hours of weekly programming on WIBM. In April 1966, Warren launched the Family Radio Evangelistic Corporation which would eventually become Family Life Radio. Today, Family Life Communications is alive and well.
BOTT RADIO NETWORK – Making a Difference
Dick Bott was practically born with a microphone in his hand. He started singing for a Child Evangelism group as a small boy in churches throughout Minneapolis. For money, he sold apples out of a wagon. His father was making $100 a week at a defense plant, and being a post-depression kid, he needed to figure out a way to make money too. After marrying Sherley Patterson at age nineteen, he began working for her father’s radio station selling advertising. Bott eventually caught the radio bug, and had visions of owning his own station. They sold their home and everything in it and purchased a station in Salinas, California for $250,000. And so began the story of Bott Radio.
K-LOVE– Humble Beginnings
K-Love started as KCLB, a single radio station that stood out for a number of reasons. It was one of the few full-time contemporary Christian music radio stations. Furthermore, KCLB was not easy to acquire. Radio personality Bob Anthony, in Middletown, California tried to purchase a station in San Francisco. After several unsuccessful tries, he ended up with a small, non-commercial radio station just north of San Francisco. The first song Bob played on KCLB was “Praise the Lord” by The Imperials. God used a tragedy for good on September 12, 1988, when a 9,000-acre brush fire destroyed KCLB’s main transmitter. KCLB relocated to Mount Saint Helena, where a more powerful transmitter was erected. The new location carried their signal as far as 125 miles away, and the rest is history.
THIS IS THE LORD’S HOUSE
Radio is part of God’s plan. The essential ingredients for transmission have always been built into His creation. God allows us to invent the technology we need to carry out His plan, but in His perfect timing. As broadcasters of God’s Living Word, Ambassadors of Christ Himself, we might consider asking ourselves on a regular basis, “Is our conduct as a Christian broadcasting entity bringing You glory in the way You intended? What part am I playing in Your history, Lord?”
ASV James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.
REFERENCES:
blogs.loc.gov/law
Gary Richard Drum
ancestry.com
en.wikipedia.org
myflr.org
JF PTAK
spiritualpilgrim.net
nrb.org
moodyradio.org
afr.net
bottradionetwork.com
bbn1.bbnradio.org
klove.com
