Re: WEVD (was WFAN New York)

[Dib9@aol.com]

In a message dated 97-08-03 00:44:43 EDT, you write:

<< >
 >Last week on LTAR, Donna was talking about the fact that religious
 >broadcasters seem to be only Christian, and that there don't seem to be
 >many Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist broadcasters.  While the Forward is
 >hardly a religious organization, WEVD is the only station I know of owned
 >by an explicitly Jewish organization (As opposed to owners like Arnie
 >Ginsburg who just happen to be Jewish).  Are there any others?
 >
 
 I think I heard one time that there was a Jewish station originating from
 somewhere in Rockland County, NY (NW of NYC, across the Hudson from
 Westchester County).  Very orthodox, I believe.  I think the chance of
 there ever being a reform Jewish station is even less than a Christian
 station carrying only Methodist and Lutheran programs.
 
 Larry Weil
 Reform Jew and proud of it! >>

I think there are three reason that most religous programming in this country
is christian:

1.  Numbers.  Despite the large number of jewish people in the USA and the
growth in followers of eastern religions, the number of Christains of various
types in this country is still much larger than other religions.

2.  Many christain denominations make spreading their religion and recruiting
new members an important tenant of their faith.  The same is not the case in
Judaism and many other religions.  Before TV and radio, there were touring
tent revivals, the growth in the christian media is following in that
tradition.

3. Money.  Christian programming has been successful in bringing in the money
to make the enterprise profitable to the programming producers and the
stations.  If the same was shown to be true for programming for other
religions, I am sure we would see more of it.

Dan Billings
Bowdoinham, Maine

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