IP: Religious broadcasters knocking NPR off the air -- on purpose

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Denise Caruso <caruso () hybridvigor org>
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 06:32:05 -0700
To: farber () dsl cis upenn edu
Subject: Religious broadcasters knocking NPR off the air -- on purpose

Good morning, Dave,

Just got this and since I notice you're up and IP-ing, thought I'd
pass it along.

Unfortunately, as you can see, not the usual NPR Internet hoax. From
the New York Times.

Denise

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/national/15RADI.html

September 15, 2002

Religious and Public Stations Battle for Share of Radio Dial
By BLAINE HARDEN

AKE CHARLES, La., Sept. 13 - The Rev. Don Wildmon, founding chairman
of a mushrooming network of Christian radio stations, does not like
National Public Radio.

"He detests the news that the public gets through NPR and believes it
is slanted from a distinctly liberal and secular perspective," said
Patrick Vaughn, general counsel for Mr. Wildmon's American Family
Radio.

Here in Lake Charles, American Family Radio has silenced what its boss
detests.

It knocked two NPR affiliate stations off the local airwaves last
year, transforming this southwest Louisiana community of 95,000
people into the most populous place in the country where "All Things
Considered" cannot be heard.

In place of that program - and "Morning Edition," "Car Talk" and a
local Cajun program called "Bonjour Louisiana" - listeners now find
"Home School Heartbeat," "The Phyllis Schlafly Report" and the
conservative evangelical musings of Mr. Wildmon, whose network
broadcasts from Tupelo, Miss.

The Christian stations routed NPR in Lake Charles under a federal law
that allows noncommercial broadcasters with licenses for full-power
stations to push out those with weaker signals - the equivalent of
the varsity team kicking the freshmen out of the gym.

This is happening all over the country. The losers are so-called
translator stations, low-budget operations that retransmit the
signals of bigger, distant stations. The Federal Communications
Commission considers them squatters on the far left side of the FM
dial, and anyone who is granted a full-power license can legally run
them out of town.

Religious broadcasters have done this to public radio stations in
Oregon and Indiana, too, and many large-market public radio stations,
like WBEZ in Chicago, complain that new noncommercial stations, most
of them religious, are stepping on the signal at the edge of their
transmission areas.

Stations are scrambling for these frequencies at a time of rapid
growth in the national NPR audience and even faster growth in
religious networks like American Family Radio. It owns 194 stations,
has 18 affiliates and has applications for hundreds more pending with
the F.C.C.

"The noncommercial band is getting very, very crowded, and there just
is not a lot of room for new stations in desirable areas," said
Robert Unmacht, a Nashville-based radio consultant. "The competition
is fierce, and the Reverend Wildmon is especially hard-nosed. His
people are very good at what they do."

Public radio is belatedly fighting back....

[snip]


-- 
Denise Caruso
Founder & Executive Director
The Hybrid Vigor Institute
+1 415.543.8113 vox/fax
http://hybridvigor.org
http://hybridvigor.net

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