Christian Radio expanded in the early 21st century and nowadays continues to broadcast the Christian message a bit all over the world. When we say Christian Radio we are mostly referring to Evangelist radio stations. Although in Latin America there is a great number of Christian Catholic radio stations, apart from this, Christian Catholic Radio Stations don’t have a tradition of radio broadcasting as big as evangelic radio stations do and for this reason we’ll focus more on Evangelic Radio Stations.
Christian Radio Stations are most established in the United States and broadcast a mixture of popular music of Christian influence and Christian talk and teaching. Just like it happens with commercial radio, Christian Radio stations play genres such as gospel and Christian Contemporary.
myTuner Radio features more than 500 Christian radio stations from all over the globe. Of these 57% are from the USA. When it comes to the genres Christian Contemporary and Gospel the US leads again with a total of 67% and 58% of stations respectively. The Top 5 most listened Christian radio stations on a worldwide level are “Vida FM” and “Feliz FM” both from the city of São Paulo in Brazil and occupy the first and second place respectively. In third, forth and fifth place comes “Musica Cristiana Internacional”, “Moody Radio Network” and “KSTN Radio Nueva Vida”, all three from the United States. On the Christian Contemporary genre, “DZAS 702” and “Radio Maria” both from the Philippines come in first and second place on the ranking, followed by “Radio Maria” from Spain in third place, “K-Love”, from the US in forth and “Radio Maria” from Italy in fifth place. When it comes to gospel the São Paulo’s station “Feliz Fm” is on top of the ranking followed by another Brazilian station, this time from the city of Rio, “Rádio Melodia”. “Vida” from Colombia appears on third place, the Brazilian “Feliz FM” from Rio de Janeiro on forth place and the Brazilian “Rádio FM Gospel” comes in fifth place.
Christian Radio stations are either connected to religious groups, which own the station or they’re owned by commercial enterprises. They can have different business models from selling blocks of airtime to evangelists seeking an audience, to donations from listeners and some also allow traditional commercial advertising.
Christian Radio Stations can range from single stations to expansive networks. Moody Radio was the first example of a small broadcaster, which was bought by religious broadcasters. WAY-FM, K-LOVE, Air 1, The Joy FM, Reach Radio, Radio Maria and Radio Vaticana are other examples of well-known worldwide Christian Radio Stations.
Broadcasting the Christian message through all over the world is a great way for Christian Radio Stations to keep the worldwide community of Christian listeners cohesive and to them this can also mean another form of being closer to God.
