Proposing Organization:

Prometheus Radio Project

Primary Investigators:

Colleen Connolly-Ahern and Amit Schejter, Penn State University

Bounty collected: $7,500

Low-power FM (LPFM) was established to give non-profit, educational organizations an outlet for local programming and community news.  In practice, religious organizations, many of them evangelical Christian churches, make up approximately half of the successful applicants for low-power FM licenses. Evangelical broadcasting corporations have also been effective in leveraging the low-power translator service, which allows a primary FM station to be simultaneously rebroadcast on a different frequency, to start hundreds of low-cost translator stations across the country.

Currently, 65 of the 1042 LPFM stations overseen by the FCC are affiliated with Calvary Chapel – a non-denominational Christian organization that includes 1345 churches throughout the United States and the world. In light of growing concerns relating to practices of syndication, this study addresses the extent to which stations operated by the Calvary Chapel organizations are fulfilling the obligations required of LPFM license holders as mandated by the FCC. Are these organizations broadcasting local programs that service the unique attributes of the communities in which they operate, or have they chosen to utilize their licenses for the purpose of broadcasting syndicated programming?

Researchers Amit Schejter and Colleen Connolly-Ahern are working in partnership with Prometheus Radio Project to compare the programming broadcast by a random sample of Calvary Chapel organizations with programming broadcast by a random sample from the entire LPFM population in the United States. Initial assessments will include quantitative content analyses of the programming schedules of stations. Subsequent qualitative content analyses will expand our understanding of Evangelical radio station programming and enable a more thorough assessment of these stations' commitment to local communities.