Everything about Family Radio totally explained
Family Radio (Family Stations Inc.) is a
non-commercial, traditional, 24-hour, listener-supported,
Christian radio religious broadcasting network in the
United States, founded in 1959 by
Harold Camping, also known as "Brother Camping" and is based in
Oakland, California. The network consists mainly of
FM radio stations with non-commercial licenses (and a few commercial licenses used as non-commercial) and relays, with some
AM stations and a
television station, plus
WYFR shortwave in
Okeechobee, Florida. The network produces programming in more than 30 languages.
Programming
Family Radio's music programming consists mainly of early American hymnals and avoids other
genres generally,
Contemporary Christian Music and
southern gospel specifically.
One of Family Radio's most enduring broadcasts is a call-in broadcast called "Open Forum" in which Mr. Camping responds to callers' questions and comments as they relate to the Bible. "Family Bible Reading Fellowship", "Family Bible Study", "Sunday Preaching", "
Beyond Intelligent Design", "Christian Home", and "Family Radio World Wide" are examples of other programming offered.
Support
Family Radio relies solely on listener-supported funding and donations, and is unaffiliated with any
religious denomination.
Outside programming broadcasted over the Family Radio network is always aired free of charge and Family Radio doesn't sell programming time to ministries. Unlike other non-commercial stations, Family Radio stations don't get a percentage of donations coming from ministries in Family Radio listening areas. Few outside ministry programs are aired over Family Radio presently.
Politics
Family Radio has never discussed
politics directly, in the sense of campaigning for political candidates for whom a Christian should vote for or even suggesting that a Christian should vote. Family Radio has distanced itself from directly political social issues, which is one of the reasons "
Focus on the Family" was removed back in the early
1980s long before other ministries were dropped. However, it does present programs that take strong positions on issues with political and social ramifications, such as advocating creationism.
History
Family Radio (aka Family Stations Inc.) began obtaining
FM broadcasting licenses on
commercial frequencies earlier in FM radio's history. By 2006, Family Radio was
ranked 19th among top broadcast companies in number of radio stations owned
. Presently, Family Radio's affiliates in
New York City,
Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Washington, and
San Francisco are on prime commercial frequencies and the licenses of these stations alone
may be worth hundreds of millions of dollars if sold today.
In 1958, a Family Radio founder,
Harold Camping, joined with other individuals of
Christian Reformed,
Bible Baptist, and Conservative
Christian
Presbyterian to purchase an
FM radio
station in
San Francisco, California,
KEAR, then at 97.3
MHz, to
broadcast traditional
Christian Gospel to the conservative
Protestant community and
minister to the general public. With the primary purpose of broadcasting
doctrines of Christianity reflective of the teachings of the Holy Bible, Family Radio remained independent, never merging with any particular church organization or church denominations
The
ministry has been a
non-profit organization and
non-commercial. In the 1960s, Family Radio continued to acquire 6 additional FM stations and 7 other
AM stations under guidelines established by the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
. The flagship station for the network of both full-power and low-power translator stations is
KEAR
in San Francisco (now at 610
kHz, since 2005 at 106.9 MHz).
Due to FCC rules regarding translator stations, the legal primary station for the translators was changed to
KEAR-FM in Sacramento, after the former primary FM station in San Francisco was sold to
CBS Radio.
Though the KEAR-FM operation in San Francisco was moved to AM, Family Radio also owns other large market FM commercial band stations, including
WFME 94.7 MHz
Newark, NJ in the
New York City radio market.
Family Radio stations, from facilities in
Oakland, California, produced teaching programs for broadcast throughout the Family Radio station network. Family Radio also provided free broadcast time to national fundamentalist and
evangelical ministries. The production process involved pre-recording two weeks of progamming on
reel-to-reel tapes, and sending them to each station. The ministries broadcasting over the Family Radio stations network sent
cassette and reel-to-reel tapes to each station to be broadcasted locally. Each local station had local board operators and, on morning and afternoon weekdays, provided local news, announcements, local traffic reports via phone call-in, and weather reports. Ministry programs included "
Focus on the Family" (which was pulled in 1985), "
Freedom Under Fire", "
Unshackled", "
Back to the Bible",
"
Family News in Focus", and
Beyond intelligent design.
Local Family Radio stations broadcasted church services from local community
fundamentalism churches, and a remainder of Family Radio's broadcast time was
allocated to traditional
Christian music.
In the late 1980s, the programming was delivered via satellite. Local news was taken off the
stations in favor of a various national news from a Christian news source. Presently, all but a few local announcements are run out of their Oakland, California facilities .
The style of music broadcasted by Family Radio in the 1960s and 1970s was typical of religious stations, commercial and non-commercial. Some commercial stations played
Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) for a few hours a week. In the 1980s, as commercial and some non-commercial Christian stations evolved to Contemporary formats, Family Radio remained with tradtional music formats such as
choir hymns, various Gospel singing groups, vocalists of the 1950s, and softer
urban contemporary gospel songs. In the
1990s, Family Radio included some lighter contemporary Christian artists but
abandoned this direction by 2002.
Family Radio's text publications, and their telephone call-in program, "Open Forum," have continued to be based on the text of the authorized
King James Bible. Pre-recorded Bible readings broadcast over satellite, shortwave, radio frequencies and the internet are generally based on the Modern King James Bible.
Translators
In addition to the main station, KEAR-FM is relayed by an additional 54 translators to widen it's broadcast area.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Family Radio'.
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