In yesterday's post in the series, we focused on the history of dominionist broadcast media, from the time of Aimee Semple McPherson to the beginnings of televangelism.
Today, we focus on the modern dominionist broadcast industry--one largely birthed from satellite television and radio networks--which includes such events as the complete hijack of an entire radio service, the attempted hijack of a second, and the beginnings of the next generation of dominionist media--the "parallel economy" digital satellite service provider. We also overview the major players in dominionist radio broadcasting today--one of the major ways dominionist groups spread their agenda to their listeners.
More after the cut...
The era of the dominionist network begins
In the early 80's, the FCC allowed--for the first time--nongovernmental shortwave broadcast as long as the programming was not directed at North American audiences. Dominionist broadcasters (and a few radio stations that would rent time to anyone, including Christian Identity broadcasters) rapidly seized the opportunity; as relays of commercial radio stations folded, dominionists bought up the licenses, and today American shortwave radio is a wasteland of dominionist "Godcasters" and radio stations renting time to "Christian Patriot" militia groups which openly violate the law against broadcasting to the US; at least six US shortwave broadcasters are in a network held by "Voice Of Hope Jerusalem", a shortwave "godcaster" operated by the dominionist church I am a walkaway from.
Radio World Online has made a particularly damning report on the wholescale steeplejacking of non-governmental shortwave broadcasting in the US, including noting that the main governing body (the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters) does not want to issue interference reports to the FCC for fear of raising scrutiny on its own misbehaviour:
All in all, U.S. SW broadcasters operate in a strange, Twilight Zone kind of world, but one that they relish. Passport's Magne believes that U.S. shortwave broadcasters enjoy it so much that they don't want the FCC to loosen its archaic restrictions on domestic shortwave.
"The truth is that they like it the way it is," he said. "If the rules were changed, it could open the floodgates to more competition."
An unfair accusation? Not according to WRMI's White.
"We discussed changing the rules at the National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters' convention a few years ago," he said. "In fact, the FCC asked for our help in doing so. However, after some discussion, a lot of people came to Magne's conclusion: that we're all better off just leaving things as they are. After all, under the current regime, the FCC pretty much leaves us alone. If the rules were changed, then they might get serious about enforcing them."
"If it works for you, leave it alone," said McClintock. Granted, the FCC shortwave rules are "as loose as a goose," he said. But "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
The hijack of the shortwave bands would soon set a model for a later hijack--namely, what would become known as the Great Translator Invasion.
. . .
In the 70's and 80's, there was also another major change in broadcasting. CATV systems and satellite systems began to be promoted to the general public as a way of getting premium broadcast material--including uncensored feature-run movies--that were not available on broadcast television.
In a pattern that would be a veritable repeat of the beginning of televangelism--and one repeated later with shortwave radio and, later, DSS satellite networks--dominionist broadcasters were among the first to move into the new field. Pat Robertson started CBN from broadcasts from the UHF TV station where he broadcast 700 Club (already in quite a bit of syndication by that point); Jan and Paul Crouch, Assemblies televangelists, founded Trinity Broadcasting Network in 1973 (and is probably the best-surviving network of that era), and CBN and TBN proteges Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker founded PTL Club--originally a TV show on TBN co-hosted by the Crouches and the Bakkers, and later splitting off into the PTL Network when the Bakkers left TBN.
All three networks were signifigant sources of promotion of dominionist theology of the "Joel's Army" sort. 700 Club rapidly became infamous for its pseudo-news format (giving a distinctively dominionist spin to world events); the Bakkers regularly hosted Tim and Barbara LaHaye (promoters of the "Joel's Army" version of premillenial dispensationalism and organisers of a large part of the "religious right" today), and TBN hosted many of the promoters of "Joel's Army" theology.
As time went on, more dominionist broadcasters entered the fold; there are now at least 24 separate and distinct religious networks that promote dominionist broadcasters. This accelerated when the PTL scandal broke in 1987 and a later ABC 20/20 expose of televangelists; many televangelists closed up shop or moved programming to satellite as a result.
Deregulation, the "great translator invasion" and the attempted steeplejacking of nonprofit FM
Dominionist broadcast media prospered, and prospered very well, on satellite. Radio and television increasingly got dominionist broadcasting from satellite feeds, which would service dominionist broadcasting very well indeed in the coming years.
Deregulation helped a great deal in the spread of dominionist media. In the 1980's, the "Fairness Doctrine" was formally abandoned by the FCC; Mother Jones' article A Higher Frequency (focusing on the history of dominionist network operator Salem Communications) details how this was effectively a green light for the beginnings of the dominionist spectrum rush--and dominionist organisation via the airwaves in almost the same manner that Aimee Semple McPherson had used back in the 30's:
In addition to patient proselytizing, Salem’s rapid expansion owed a lot to Reagan-era deregulation. Until 1987, the FCC required broadcasters to provide equal time to political opponents. And the last thing a religious broadcaster wanted to do was eat up airtime with liberals "promoting" abortion and homosexuality. But when the FCC repealed the fairness doctrine, the shackles that had forced Salem to tiptoe cautiously around the society’s great cultural fault lines fell away. KKLA station manager Terry Fahy first realized the raw political power Salem now commanded when Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ hit the theaters in 1988. KKLA spearheaded a demonstration at MCA Universal Studios, where chanting protesters mobbed the entrance, waving signs and banners. "They were saying Route 101 is really blocked, you can’t get there," remembers Fahy, who now manages Salem’s four-station L.A. cluster. Tens of thousands of people also participated in protests at theaters and video stores nationwide. That was a lot of Christians—enough, by any objective measure, to wield significant political clout if harnessed.
Another instance of FCC deregulation helped dominionists--in the mid-90s, regulations were considerably relaxed on how many radio stations a particular company could own in a market. This turned out to be a major boon:
By the mid-1990s, Salem had developed a signature business strategy. Atsinger and Epperson would approach highly leveraged stations and offer huge amounts of money. "They are actually pretty shrewd at buying stations, but also at moving stations around to maximize their coverage," says John Crigler, an attorney in Washington, D.C. (Crigler represented Reed College after Salem acquired a station in Oregon and then moved its transmitter, which effectively blocked Reed’s signal.) Shows taped at KKLA and the three other stations based in the Glendale office are beamed out to affiliates, offering the company a significant advantage over single operators.
Soon, though, Salem bumped up against the FCC laws limiting the number of stations any one company could own nationwide and in each market. So, like everyone else in the broadcast industry, Epperson and Atsinger lobbied for the Telecommunications Act of 1996. They gave $74,000 to key legislators, a small part of the tidal wave of industry contributions. Pushed by Newt Gingrich’s 104th Congress, largely written by lobbyists, and signed by President Clinton, the new law eliminated FCC national ownership caps and loosened local ownership restrictions. After that, Salem Communications went on an acquisitions tear, owning 40 radio stations nationwide by the end of that year and organizing stations into local "clusters," which shared administrative resources and gave Salem a further cost-saving edge over smaller operations.
Salem remains focused on deregulation. Between 1998 and 2004, Salem Communications and its executives contributed $423,000 to federal candidates—making it the sixth-largest industry donor today—96 percent of which went to Republicans. Salem also has a PAC, which contributes only to Republicans—about $54,000 to Republican congressional candidates in the last election cycle.
Some of the major players in this were already becoming major players in dominionism--American Family Radio (operated by the American Family Association), TBN (which had entered shortwave broadcasting during the dominionist steeplejacking of nongovernmental shortwave and was now entering the radio market), Salem Broadcasting, and Calvary Chapel became the new face of dominionist radio. Much of their programming was "Christian contemporary" music mixed in with dominionist talk radio (in the same general format of the rise of talk radio in general); these networks also promoted dominionist radio programming for children as well as adults.
American Family Radio, Educational Media Foundation (operators of the Way-1 and K-Love religious radio networks) and Calvary Chapel became infamous rapidly because of the specific way they set up their radio empires. A loophole existed in regards to licensing of translators (essentially, "relays" for FM radio stations in areas of low signal) for nonprofit radio stations; unlike commercial broadcasters (who had to set up translators only within their specific broadcast area), nonprofits could set up "distant translators"--translators that were, in many cases, all the way across the country. Not only that, but there were very loose legal restrictions on how many translators a single company could own; also, the FCC gave priority for nonprofit radio translators above practically all other stations and translator applications were among the easiest of all FM license applications to get approved by the FCC.
In 2003, a "filing window" opened up for applications for translators for nonprofit stations.
And so American Family Radio, EMF, and Calvary Chapel's radio stations--among other dominionist radio networks--started buying and building translators. In the thousands. Calvary Chapel's concerns, in fact, had so many radio translator apps going at once that they had at least six different front companies managing them including Horizon, Radio Assist Ministries, and Edgewater Communications--and over thirteen thousand apps pending with the FCC simultaneously in a spree of "application spamming" now known as the Great Translator Invasion.
As translator applications were approved, these were promptly set up as "sat-casting" stations--in the case of the Calvary Chapel linked groups, relaying Calvary Satellite Network programming.
So many applications were filed in many areas that literally no space was left on the dial for anyone else wanting to set up a translator or a radio station--in the case of American Family Radio in particular, this was designed as a deliberate tactic to lock non-dominionist broadcasters out entirely. In many cases, multiple Calvary Chapel-linked companies would simultaneously file for the same channel slot--so that one would be guaranteed to get it. One Calvary Chapel-linked group filed over sixty translator apps for frequencies in Chicago, Illinois alone.
In essence, this allowed dominionist broadcasters to set up huge networks for a fraction of the cost of large full-power networks whilst effectively crowding out practically all non-dominionist voices in the community.
In some cases, the app-spamming threatened existing low-power FM broadcasters--after a particularly infamous episode where an LPFM station belonging to a school in Maynard, MA was nearly shut down thanks to a translator being planned for a Calvary Chapel-linked firm, the FCC put a freeze on new applications for nonprofit translator stations due to the massive app-spam by dominionists.
Unfortunately, it may have been too late. Even after the FCC freeze on new applications, though, there is still quite the shell game going on of shuffling of translators between religious broadcasters. Some of this is the result of an ongoing scandal within Calvary Chapel's broadcast empire but some of the shuffling is simply collusion between dominionist broadcasters and others are simply due to reorganisation of translator satcasting networks and swaps of translators between different dominionist radio network owners; EMF and the Calvary Chapel concerns are particularly known to collude. And the FCC is still sorting through app-spam--even with the freeze, almost 1000 Calvary Chapel-linked apps have been approved.
The battle is likely to continue for a long time--LPFM advocacy groups are trying to protect the airwaves, a veritable David against the Goliath of the dominionist broadcast industry.
It is not encouraging in this that the Great Translator Invasion seems to be spreading to television as well--TBN has now begun a program of setting up masses of television translator stations in almost the identical manner that Calvary Chapel has set up its huge "godcasting" network.
There is some hope, though. The FCC has so far put its foot down on Calvary Chapel's attempts to app-spam the LPFM service (by law, these low-powered stations are not supposed to be satcasters and are meant to serve primarily local interests--community radio stations and stations operated by high schools are the primary licensing target for this radio service). Some of the app-spam has been successful, but much of it has not.
The age of the dominionist satellite provider
Dominionist media would also target the DSS industry at its beginnings, much as it did "big dish" satellite and shortwave.
Dominion Video Satellite was in fact the first company in the US to be granted a DSS franchise by the FCC when digital satellite broadcasting began in 1981. Today, Sky Angel is a major player in dominionist media--being essentially a DSS provider whose programming consists entirely of dominionist material (with a few token secular channels seen as sdominionist-friendly) including programming from one of the major dominionist hijackers of the shortwave bands--High Adventure Ministries, the operating company of Voice Of Hope Jerusalem (and connected with the dominionist church I am an escapee of).
According to their own page, they are explicitly set up as a dominionist DSS provider, complete with a bibolatrous statement of faith. Even the Wikipedia article on Sky Angel notes its rather explicit dominionist content:
Angel One offers a variety of inspirational and political programming, most of which reflect Sky Angel's support of conservative fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. Several shows, with hosts such as David Reagan and Hal Lindsey, attempt to translate current events into biblical prophecy. Other programs encourage political activism on the part of conservative Christians. Topics covered on the Angel One shows include abortion, gay marriage, and even witchcraft.
Angel Two carries special programming such as documentaries and coverage of religious gatherings. Angel Two has covered all three Justice Sundays, meetings of the Promise Keepers and Vision America, and has aired annual autumn specials such as Halloween Exposed and Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged.
Of interesting note, Dominion Video Satellite is the solitary DSS provider that doesn't put up its own satellites--rather, Sky Angel operates in a frequency-sharing relationship with EchoStar's DSS system. (In other words, both Dish Network and Sky Angel are carried on the same satellites on different channels; the subscriptions (and smartcards used in the receivers) simply go through different companies, and Sky Angel gets use of EchoStar's equipment.)
Sky Angel's activity gives an indication on how sophisticated the dominionist "parallel economy" of broadcast media has gotten. Sky Angel was in fact the primary broadcaster of all three Justice Sunday events (including the most recent; they in fact actively brag about their involvement) as well as the Liberty Sunday lobbying event and a dominionist program encouraging lobbying in favour of Samuel Alito's nomination for the Supreme Court. (All of the events in question were originally broadcast on an "in-house" Sky Angel channel--essentially the equivalent of their public access channels--and later re-run by Trinity Broadcasting Network.) Their in-house specials are almost entirely aimed at dominionist and specifically "Joel's Army" concerns (including television specials specifically promoting the neopentecostal dominionist versions of premillenial dispensationalism); it's probably not an exaggeration to state that Dominion/Sky Angel is the major television media outlet for dominionist organisation. (Upcoming in-house specials include specific programming from Mission America, promotion of the "Joel's Army" version of "rapture theology", programs produced by Vision America (another hardline dominionist group), and even frank promotion of the highly abusive Hillsong Assemblies of God church in Australia. and promotion of "satanic panic".)
Sky Angel's programming guide and roster of channels is a veritable who's who of dominionist broadcasting, even without the Justice Sunday relays. Their inhouse channels (Angel One and Angel Two) are pretty much continuous dominionist television 24/7 (when they're not promoting frank dominionist premillenial dispensationalism, holding dominionist political teleconferences, or promoting "name it and claim it" on those channels--the channel roster reads like an in-house version of the old CBN or PTL channels, or the modern TBN); among other things, the 700 Club is carried on them as well as other dominionist televangelists.
No less than ten channels (two of which are explicitly aimed at children) carry almost continuous 24/7 televangelist and dominionist programming; TBN is among them (carrying a veritable carnival of "Joel's Army" televangelists including the Crouches themselves as well as dominionist "therapist" Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Rod Parsley's World Harvest Church, Ted Haggard's former congregation New Life Church, and many many others; in fact it has literally been described by evangelical critics as the "Word-Faith Channel"), as well as Cornerstone Television (carrying "Joel's Army" premillenial-dispensationalist promoter John Hagee and also connected to PAX TV as noted below), Liberty Channel (operated by Liberty University), Guardian Television Network (the latest iteration of PAX TV), Faith TV (essentially a third "in-house" channel of Sky Angel, and one which promotes not only "Joel's Army" rapture theology but Assemblies-style "satanic panic" to boot), Total Living Network (run out of a dominionist station in Chicago and which has explicitly promoted the "America is a Christian Nation" canard), and Safe TV Network (which is quite explicitly dominionist in its founding statement. Many of these channels have substantially identical programming between the lot of them, the main difference being that different networks carry the same program at different times a day.
Rather disturbingly, they happily brag about their kid's network (ostenably meant as a dominionist alternative to Nickelodeon) promoting programming from Promise Keepers (which has been linked to the abusive use of "discipling and shepherding" groups). Of note, the "dominionist Nickelodeon" is also a fourth in-house channel Sky Angel operates.
In addition, Sky Angel carries a very few non-explicitly-dominionist networks; the very few secular channels it carries are in fact also seen as dominionist-friendly. Much of Hallmark Television's material are reruns from CBS shows which were in turn rerun on the network PAX TV--a television network largely consisting of television stations owned and operated by dominionist churches and operated by the dominionist founder of Home Shopping Network; PAX TV has been especially noted for television "steeplejacking" of public television stations (including, infamously, the attempted steeplejacking of Pittsburgh public broadcasting station WQEX) and attempts to widen the already considerable loopholes in dominionist broadcasting--including attempts to get federal licensing rules changed to be explicitly more friendly to dominionist TV. Cornerstone Network, noted above, is also owned by Paxson Communications. HGTV is also shown (presumably because it teaches homemaking skills to wives) and Fox News (being the solitary "secular" neoconservative news channel) is also carried.
The system also has an explicit alternative to the digital music systems on DBS and cable systems; its music channels consist of two "Christian contemporary" video channels and multiple streams of dominionist radio stations. Stations carried include Voice of Hope Jerusalem (being a walkaway from the group that runs it, I can tell you it's bad news), Calvary Satellite Network (a major player in radio steeplejacking of the airwaves), Way-FM (another major "Great Translator Invasion" perp), Moody Broadcasting Network, Bott Radio Network, an explicitly dominionist talk radio network operated by Salem Communications (one of the parties with a radio show is Dennis Prager, a "messianic Jew" who is so dominionist he believes that breastfeeding is not only "overrated" but actually immoral and potentially even a form of "religion") as well as a stream of Salem-owned Z-93 and other dominionist radio stations. (All of these are major players in dominionist radio networks; we'll go into this in far more detail in the next post.)
In fact, a dominionist family subscribing to Sky Angel is effectively isolated in a nearly totally dominionist-controlled and dominionist-friendly television and radio environment--where they will likely never hear any viewpoints in direct opposition to a dominionist worldview. In fact, most disturbing of all--this is actually used as Sky Angel's primary selling point to dominionists.
Sky Angel is also not restricting themselves to DSS networks--in a repeat of a pattern almost as old as dominionist televangelism itself, Sky Angel is one of the first providers to embrace IP television over broadband Internet lines (marketed in Canada in part due to the extensive broadband infrastructure and in part to get around "Canadian content" rules that companies servicing Canada via satellite must follow; as televangelism was only recently legalised in Canada, there are no established Canadian dominionist networks on the scale of US broadcast dynasties).
Sky Angel is far from alone in the promotion of dominionism; as dominionist radio and TV networks have been set up, the promotion of dominionism has become ever more blatant (and in fact was a subject of a Harper's expose on the National Religious Broadcasters). In fact, the NRB had turned so hardline dominionist as a whole by 2001 that they formally split ties with the National Association of Evangelicals (at that point controlled by Ted Haggard and effectively a dominionist group itself at that point)--because they felt the NAE was too liberal. The NRB has also become increasingly vocal politically itself--and has partnered in some cases with Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. (who himself now owns one of the major publishers for the "Joel's Army" dominionist community, Zondervan).
Tomorrow, we focus on the world of dominionist talk radio--a universe that, if anything, makes Rush Limbaugh seem like a friendly drunken uncle in comparison.