Catholic Radio is Taking Off
Catholic radio is taking off. In 1996 there were only seven U.S. Catholic radio
stations. Ten years later, 130 stations across the United States now broadcast full or part time Catholic programming.
That is still a small fraction of the total religious radio stations in the US — there are over 2000 and the vast majority are evangelical. Religious stations, as a whole, have grown by about 85 percent since 1998 alone. They now outnumber rock, classical, hip-hop, R&B, soul, and jazz stations combined.
In an evangelical hotbed like Colorado Springs, I suppose I won't surprise anyone if I report that we have 5 local Christian radio stations. Meanwhile, a valiant group is struggling to start the first Catholic station along the Front Range, in Denver, a city of 3.5 million.
One big difference between Catholic stations and non-Catholic Christian radio stations is music. Catholic stations are heavily talk-oriented: preaching, teaching, news, call-in talk shows, etc. EWTN is the biggest source of programming and the majority of Catholic stations broadcast some EWTN content while supplementing it with locally produced fare.
But non-Catholic Christian radio is a platform for the burgeoning contemporary Christian music industry. Christian radio’s audience, in particular, has climbed 33 percent over the last five years, thanks in large part to the emergence of contemporary Christian music. No other English-language format can boast that kind of growth.
Despite their growing reach, Christian networks still lag behind many secular heavyweights when it comes to audience size. About a million U.S. households tune in daily to each of the most popular Christian television shows. Likewise, Christian radio stations draw about 5 percent market share, on average. Nevertheless, the draw of Christian radio is beginning to create an "alternate universe of faith-based news according to this article in the Columbia Journalism Review.
What is the future of specifically Catholic radio? Has the lack of high quality contemporary Catholic music affected the spread of Catholic radio? Will Catholic radio and television remain essentially catechetical and apologetic or will it begin to branch out?
posted by Sherry W @ 1:01 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Interestingly enough, Drew Mariani over on Relevant Radio was complaining about the lack of funding, support, and quality of much of Catholic Radio.
I have grown to appreciate Talk Radio over the years, but I have to say that most Catholic TR bores me to tears...and I'm genuinely interested in what they have to talk about.
I suppose it's a little like the situation with Catholic Music . . .
Where Catholic radio is lacking, Catholic podcasting is making up for it. There are some really dynamic (and popular) Catholic podcasts out there. Now mind you, the stats I'm about to quote don't sound all that impressive, but when you figure that the average podcast listener has to WORK to get a podcast (find, download, play on computer or load up on MP3 player as opposed to just flicking on the radio) and that podcasting is not at all mainsteam, these numbers are pretty good.
Some of the most popular podcasts are The Daily Breakfast with Fr. Roderick Vonhogen (from the Netherlands), The Rosary Army Catholic Podcast with Greg and Jennifer Willits (both of these, btw, won a very prestigious podcast award last year for best religious, and best general, podcasts) and Verbum Domini (featuring the daily readings). The Vatican is also podcasting with podcasts in 13 different languages.
There is a popular Catholic music podcast as well known as Catholic Rockers.
The above mentioned podcasts (with the exception of the Vatican) are part of SQPN (StarQuest Production Network) at SQPN.com.
I also have a podcast associated with GrapeVine known as the GrapeVine News Minute.
SQPN podcasts have gotten as many as 50,000 listens/downloads in a month's period.
Catholic radio could take a lesson from these podcasts. They are fresh, breezy, very informative, very entertaining, funny and so very different from the standard Catholic Radio/EWTN (frankly boring) format.
SQPN is beginning to venture into videocasts as well.
I think podcasting is the future medium over radio for the Church. Podcasts are very inexpensive to produce, can be played anytime by anyone all over the world with access to the internet, and are not so desperately dependent on funding. Podcasting is also a very personal experience. Feedback is frequent (through email, blogs and audio feedback)and thus, listeners really feel like they have developed relationships with these podcasters
Speaking of funding, The Daily Breakfast and Rosary Army put on a simulataneous fundraiser last fall - each wanted to raise $50,000 for their apostolates. Both succeeded. That's impressive!
Check these podcasts out at sqpn.com. Mine's available at www.gvonline.net.
Susan,
Thanks for mentioning podcasts. I agree that this is the new media. I think that if you look at Catholic radio, you'll see the demographics tend to skew older because of the format.
Podcasting is the way younger generations will do a great deal of communicating.
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