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Christian Radio Poised to Influence Millions

By Doris Fleck

When two Hell’s Angels began drinking beer and smoking dope in a Fredericton, N.B. hotel room, they probably weren’t arguing about God’s loving kindness. Then they turned on the bedside radio, which happened to be tuned to a new local station called JOY-FM.

Charles Stanley, an American preacher, was presenting a Gospel message. The bikers listened and then "gave their lives to the Lord right there," according to Garth McCrea, the station's manager.

Shortly after, still wearing their Hell's Angels "colors," the duo showed up at a local rally for Christian bikers—scaring everyone for a few seconds until they blurted out their still-fresh conversion story.

"If it can happen to us," the new believers said, "it can happen to anybody. Thank God for JOY-FM."

The story of the two bikers is only the first of several stories of salvation that McCrea knows were influenced by his station's local broadcast, which has been on-air only three years.

The effect of radio among local Christians is even bigger. "We are also seeing an interconnecting happening within the Christian community here that we've never seen before," McCrea says.

Seven years ago, when there were only a handful of Christian stations in Canada, most Canadians would have dismissed such claims as self-promotion.

But now as Canada boasts more than 30 stations, with new ones popping up almost every other month, such stories are happening simultaneously in province after province, city after city, town after town. They're getting harder to dismiss.

Skeptics will soon be faced with more such stories than they can count as a tidal wave of new Christian radio surges across Canada in the next five years. Reasons for explosive growth are manifold: a maturing of infrastructure, cooperation and technology, plus an increase in talent and money. Not to mention occasional opportunities to draw from the vibrant and enormous Christian radio industry in the United States. And, of course, pent-up demand from Canadian Christians.

Why listen?

Many Christians have objections to the music, personalities or political biases in mainstream radio. Others, enthusiastic about Christian music and talk broadcasts they hear on the Internet or when traveling in the United States, argue these should be available on the airwaves where they live.

Musicians who want to make explicitly Christian contemporary music face the frustration that few Canadian stations play it and that restricted audience size prevents developing their talents into a career except if they move to Nashville.

McCrea envisions a future of widespread Christian radio in Canada: "Finally we will have a medium in Canada with a different perspective than the mainstream secular media."

Janet Epp Buckingham, director of law and public policy for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), says she hears from a lot of Christians frustrated with the slant CBC radio has on current events. "To be able to hear news and views from a Christian perspective is enormously encouraging."

Buckingham has first-hand experience, since she tries to offer such a perspective on a monthly interview segment on CHRI-FM, Ottawa's Christian station.

That perspective also translates into the kind of charities that Christian radio supports. Allan Hunsperger's stations in Alberta—"The Light," an Edmonton AM station, and SHINE-FM in Calgary—are a case in point. Both help raise funds for many local Christian ministries. The annual 2003 Christmas SHINE-A-THON for Calgary's Mustard Seed Street Ministry raised $217,000 in 12 hours. (Hunsperger is president of Touch Canada Broadcasting, which owns the stations.)

Demand from Canadians also comes in different musical flavours. Although many current stations focus on meeting the demand for rock and pop music with Christian lyrics, several new stations are in the works intended to meet demand for a more distinctive format: southern Gospel music.

Hunsperger plans to convert his Edmonton AM station from the "adult contemporary" format to southern Gospel. The switch will coincide with the launch of a new SHINE-FM in Edmonton, formatted to feature contemporary music.

There is a huge market for southern Gospel music in Canada, Hunsperger says. "When Bill Gaither comes into town, he fills the Saddledome in Calgary and the Skyreach Centre in Edmonton. There's not too many contemporary music groups that can do that."

Over in Fredericton, Garth McCrea agrees. "There's a tremendous demand for the southern Gospel, country Gospel and inspirational country music," he says.

JOY-FM in Fredericton has approached the CRTC (Canada's broadcast regulator) about approval for a second station featuring the southern Gospel sound. "God willing, if we're granted approval, we could be up and running by the fall," McCrea says.

But even as they get excited about bringing in the southern Gospel format, radio managers are focused on a shared, spiritual goal. Hunsperger doesn't mince words: "I think that as secular radio continues to get rotten to the core and continues to spew out vile pornography there will be an ongoing movement towards Christian radio, towards something more wholesome."

Scott Jackson is general manager of Barrie, Ontario's LIFE-FM. The primary goal of Christian radio, in his opinion, is to provide its listeners with information and music that will reflect their Christian lifestyle. "Our secondary goal is to reach non-Christians. Christian radio is commissioned to impact the community. God's Word told us to go into the world so we are commissioned to do that."

Jackson's five-year-old station is having unprecedented success with that secondary goal. "When the secular station in town changed their format, they lost all their teens," Jackson explains. "We got all that [primarily non-Christian] audience." Experts estimate that LIFE-FM's 3.5 percent share of the market jumps up to 40 percent at night.

Cooperation

LIFE-FM may have the highest ratings of any Christian radio station in Canada, but it's not gloating. Jackson's board of directors asked him to "tithe" his 25 years of experience and help fledgling stations get off the ground.

"So on company time, I go to other stations and in most cases LIFE-FM has paid my way to go," Jackson says. He has assisted stations from Whitehorse to Medicine Hat and Lethbridge, and from Moncton to Fredericton and St. John's.

LIFE-FM also takes ten percent of its gross income and uses it to support other Christian radio stations and Christian artists in Canada with the intent of raising the quality of Christian radio and music right across the country.

"We need better music; we need better announcers; we need more visionaries," Jackson says. "How are we going to change someone's life for Christ with our ministry if our ministry isn't good?"

Jackson is answering his question with a monthly trade magazine, More Radio. He published the first issue in January 2004. His goal with it is to connect people in the industry, to pool information so managers can find out about other stations' promotions, their philosophy and the Canadian artists they are playing. With input from other stations, Jackson plans to develop a Top 20 chart for Canadian Christian artists.

Bob DuBroy, operations manager of CHRI-FM in Ottawa, is also encouraging other fledgling Christian broadcasters by writing a manual to help new stations get off the ground. The idea came during a Christian media roundtable discussion, sponsored by the EFC. DuBroy thought veteran broadcasters could share their best practices through a manual available to anyone.

Now the 50-page manuscript is almost complete. "It really helps educate the beginner on the regulatory system and format; buying the right equipment; guidelines on the budget; flow charts. It's an excellent primer," says DuBroy. He is still looking for more input from other broadcasters and is willing to e-mail copies of the text to anyone interested in starting a Christian radio station.

When DuBroy began in Christian radio, he asked stations in the United States to take him on as an intern so he could learn how they operate.

"What disheartened me is that nobody would take me," he recalls. "I vowed at that point that I would help anybody who would come here."

CHRI recently hosted a Catholic nun from Kenya who spent a month learning their system. "She just blossomed here," DuBroy says. "Had we said 'No,' we would have turned our back on the people who will benefit from this ministry in Africa."

International funding, expertise

As the young Christian radio industry shares its knowledge overseas, it also imports some. Scott Jackson gained much of his experience in Christian radio working in the United States.

Gary Hoogvliet is another example. He came from New Zealand two years ago to develop a Canadian radio network associated with the United Christian Broadcasters (UCB) International.

New Zealand is a deregulated country with approximately 250 radio stations that service a population less than that of Toronto. Hoogvliet has 30 years experience in that competitive market. "To be able to survive they've had to technically move into new areas in order to be economically viable," he says. For example, in New Zealand Christian radio was the first to use satellite. They now have three satellite networks—youth, family and inspirational—that cover 98 percent of the country.

When UCB was invited to come to Canada and set up a radio network here, it decided to focus all its energy and resources on one station and make it superb. With grant money from UCB International, Hoogvliet poured $750,000 into a new, high-powered FM station in Belleville, Ontario. That station launched October 18, 2003.

Now for just $20,000, any community can have a repeater featuring UCB's programming.

"Our vision is to cover Canada," Hoogvliet says. "We think that every Canadian has the right to freely listen to Canadian Christian radio." He argues that it's more cost effective to start up as a UCB repeater station "and from day one have high quality Christian broadcasting" rather than trying to create a local radio station from scratch.

Hoogvliet is quick to add that UCB is not interested in dominating. He compares its ministry to training wheels on a bicycle. A local community that opts for a UCB repeater can add their own, locally produced programming. Starting with just a few hours a day, eventually such a station could "take the training wheels off and stand free. That would be the ultimate ideal," says Hoogvliet.

UCB is also bringing three Internet stations to Canada. By the end of May, Canadians should have access to UCB Bible, where the Bible is read 24 hours a day; UCB Talk, which is completely spoken word programming; and UCB Inspirational which provides softer music for an older audience. (Most of Canada's Christian stations can be heard by visiting www.christianity.ca/entertainment/features/radio.html.)

Repeaters and satellite

As UCB promotes its franchise model of repeater stations, other Canadian stations are hard at work adding their own small repeaters.

DuBroy says CHRI-FM has applied for repeaters in Cornwall and Pembroke.

LIFE-FM already has a repeater station in Owen Sound and another in Peterborough.

Canada's oldest Christian station, Newfoundland's VOAR-AM, founded in 1929, has put up 12 new transmitter sites across the province in the last four years, and also added an Internet broadcast. By the end of November 2002 VOAR was also carried nationwide on satellite TV by Bell ExpressVu. Station manager Sherry Griffin has heard from people in Saudi Arabia who listen to VOAR via the Internet—a huge risk in that Muslim country.

Griffin and other Christian station managers are watching the numbers of Canadians who sign up for satellite and digital cable services, and it may prove to be this television technology that spreads Christian radio the fastest. Canada currently has two million satellite subscribers and 4.5 million digital cable subscribers. Industry experts multiply that figure by 2.35 persons per home, which totals 15.2 million users—and those numbers are growing quickly.

Paul Weigel isn't waiting for the numbers to rise. As reported in Faith Today's January/February 2004 issue, this year he's launching the Forerunner Radio Network (FRN) on digital cable and satellite TV, and later the National Youth Network (The Buzz).

"If we provide the kind of broadcast programming that Canadians want, they don't care how they get it, they just want to get what they want," says Weigel.

He points to statistics from the United Kingdom that show radio on satellite TV has been hugely successful. "They have stations there that are pulling down 1.5 million listeners," he says.

Canada needs national Christian voices, Weigel maintains. The FRN intends to provide a voice for the entire faith community in Canada and help connect Christians with the issues facing the country as a whole.

Clearly, Christian radio has entered a new phase of maturity and growth in Canada (so has the Christian music industry, although that's another story). Infrastructure, cooperation, talent and fundraising have all grown and continue to develop—to the point that some Christian stations are actually focusing on gaining audience from their mainstream rivals. It probably won't be long before most of Canada's cities follow the lead of Edmonton, Winnipeg, Sudbury and Moncton, which already have two local Christian stations each—not to mention three or four more beaming in to satellite customers.

Canadians everywhere are sure to find Christian music, talk and news programs becoming easily available to them in the next few years. The only questions that remain are: How many will become regular listeners? And how many will tune in "by accident," like the pair of Hell's Angels in Fredericton, only to have their lives changed? Pioneers like Scott Jackson, Gerry Hoogvliet, Allan Hunsperger, Paul Weigel, Bob DuBroy and Garth McCrea can't wait to find out.

Doris Fleck is a freelance writer in Calgary, Alta.

Originally published in Faith Today, May/June 2004.

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