One of the major ways (it's being found) that Calvary Chapel is owning a huge chunk of radio spectrum is not just through the larger holding firms they own (like CSN) but through regional groups that put in mass applications for practically all available frequency space in an area.

In several major markets, this has been frighteningly successful--not only have smaller stations been driven off the air (like the high school in Maynard, Massachusetts that was driven off air by a station held by one of the many, many regional holding companies that are essentially front-firms of Calvary Chapel) but in many cases there is no available spectrum space for them to relocate to because translators have literally filled all the available broadcast slots.

It's been difficult to get a good handle on the actual numbers, but a conservative estimate is that at least 3000 and probably closer to 5000 licensed translators are held by Calvary Chapel associated firms alone; several other groups, notably American Family Radio (the American Family Association's radio "outreach") also practice similar tactics.  The total could be as far as 15,000 stations, but some of the persons researching have expressed concern some may be accounted by duplicate applications.

Based on what we have seen informally (on mapped, licensed stations serving the top 50 market regions) it is probably not an exaggeration to state that fully half or more of the licensed radio stations in the US--the majority of these being translators--are owned by dominionist groups.  During the next few weeks I hope to publish some of the results I've found with radio stations in larger markets as well as in markets of particular dominionist influence (like Colorado Springs, Colorado).

The AM and FM hijackings (including the "Great Translator Invasion") aren't restricted to low-power stations, either; Salem Communications (a dominionist radio concern) has targeted licenses of public radio stations that are NPR affiliates, as has American Family Radio.  Disturbingly, the AFA has admitted this is part of a deliberate strategy to essentially crowd non-dominionist radio stations off the dial altogether.

Sadly, they do have an example to point to showing the effectiveness of this strategy.  Practically all shortwave radio stations in the US that are not directly owned or operated by either the US government or the United Nations are owned by religious broadcasters--sometimes some of the foulest on the dial (as in, literally Christian Identity radio broadcasts, broadcasts targeted at "Christian Militia" groups, and the like); fully half of the shortwave religious broadcasting stations in the US are owned by one firm, High Adventure Ministries, which bought out most of the other stations over a four-year period.  (Full disclosure: I am a walkaway from the church that presently operates High Adventure Ministries.)

These stations actually transmit illegally to North American audiences (technically, shortwave stations are NOT supposed to transmit to domestic audiences; the Voice of America will not issue QSLs (cards acknowledging receipt of the station) to US addresses for this reason) and the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters (the umbrella group for shortwave religio-casters in the US) actually has admitted it does not wish to request rule changes from the FCC for real fear that the FCC might start enforcing the rules it already has on the books--and notice the mass violations by NASB members of present shortwave broadcast law.

by dogemperor on Thu Mar 09, 2006 at 03:15:10 PM EST