Right-wing Radio

The story of low-power radio is a cautionary tale on how a progressive victory can quickly be turned to conservative gain. Thanks to Rupert Murdoch, Clear Channel, and Sinclair Broadcasting, the right wing has long dominated corporate media. Now religious broadcasters are busy pushing community radio right off the FM dial.

Low-power FM (LPFM) radio is a service created five years ago by the Federal Communications Commission in response to an effective lobbying by progressive activists -- that enables schools, churches, civic associations, or clubs to establish their own neighborhood radio stations. Yet this vision of locally operated, independently programmed, and not-for-profit media is being threatened with extinction before it even gets off the ground.

The Dream of Low Power Radio

For years, media reform activists have fought valiantly to force the FCC to issue licenses for low power radio stations. Their dream: to create a space on the radio dial for true locally produced community programming, untainted by the profit considerations of large media conglomerates. Low power radio would finally give voice to those who needed it most: people of color, low-income communities, local organizations.

Five years after their victory, community radio has become the bastion of Christian programming. LPFM is being squeezed off the radio dial by religious broadcasters who are gobbling up FM frequencies at an astonishing speed. Their weapon of choice: low power translators.

While much of the media coverage of rightwing groups and low power radio has focused on low power licenses -- they represent about half of the applications (344) for the FCC low power licenses -- these broadcasters dominate low power frequencies primarily by acquiring translator licenses.

Translators, which range in power from 10 to 250 watts, were created by the FCC to help boost signals of existing stations in areas where the terrain can hamper their signals. Christian broadcasters use these translators to transmit programs from their bigger full-power stations. Unlike commercial stations which can only have a translator within the receivable range of the full-power "parent" station non-commercial groups such as religious broadcasters can place their translators at any distance and feed them via satellite or other means. As a result, one full-power station can be used to broadcast programming across a number of states, vastly extending its reach, especially in rural areas. And the more translators take up low power frequencies in a community, the less room for local radio stations on the FM dial. More importantly, Christian radio networks can gain access to small communities without having to produce any local programming -- since the FCC forbids translator stations from airing such programming.

The end result: community radio is literally being crowded off the radio by religious broadcasters.

The most notorious of the Christian broadcasters who abuse translator licenses is Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls, Idaho, which owns only 34 full-power radio stations, but transmits programming to 361 translators across the country from its flagship station, KAWZ.

While Calvary Chapel is by far the biggest user of translators, other such major broadcasters of Christian radio programming have large number of such stations of their own. They include the American Family Association Radio, Bott Radio Network, Bible Broadcasting Network, and Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. The combined heft of these broadcasters adds up to a level of audience penetration that's simply astonishing. Take, for example, "Portraits of Freedom," a syndicated program hosted by Alan Sears, the president and chief lawyer of the James Dobson-backed Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). And now look at the map of the stations and translators that broadcast this program. Translators, in essence, have become the backbone of a powerful radio empire of the religious right that reaches people in every corner of America.