LDS Church launches new radio network

With The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints introducing its new 24/7 radio service on Monday, potential listeners who think they can tune in with traditional transistors and car radios are going to need a little more modern thinking in order to find "Mormon Channel."

Billed as originating from "Temple Square" (more specifically, broadcast studios located inside the LDS Conference Center on the church's headquarters campus), the Mormon Channel is accessible via the Internet and eight select HD radio affiliates across the country — radio stations of the church's Bonneville International, in Salt Lake City, Seattle, Los Angeles, Phoenix, St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C.

The HD signal is transmitted at KSL FM 102.7 channel 2; Internet access is available either at radio.lds.org or mormonchannel.org.

Calling Monday "a historic day," with a radio-type broadcast originating from Salt Lake City and being available across the globe, Elder John B. Dickson of the church's Quorums of the Seventy and executive director of its audiovisual department said "this is an opportunity for the church to put out positive, compelling content."

And it's an opportunity to do so at modest expenses at best for both production by the church and for the listener, the latter needing only a computer or mobile phone with Internet access or a HD-capable radio receiver to access the free signal and programming.

David C. Nielson, the audiovisual departments's managing director, cited recent Arbitron statistics showing 42 million Internet radio listeners and said the Mormon Channel "is a throwback to radio," as well as "an audio source with many distribution channels, including the most cutting-edge of technology."

Elder Dickson said content can be categorized in three different areas — news, archives and partner material.

The "new" element includes 20 new weekly series, ranging from interviews with church leaders and prominent church members to informational packages on the teachings of Jesus Christ and the church's doctrine, history and news. Also, the Mormon Channel looks to provide live audio feeds from LDS General Conference, firesides, Mormon Tabernacle Choir performances and other special events, as well as interactive pieces for youth and children.

The "archive" element involves the use of audio materials from church archives and past audiovisual materials.

And the "partner" element allows the use of audio feeds from church-sponsored universities or entities such as Deseret Book.

"We have the opportunity to extend the messages of the church in yet another way with the new station," said Chris Twitty, the church's director of digital media. "We have access to all the resources of the church in creating program content. Though it seems a daunting task to fill the air time, we have a wealth of information that will be of interest to listeners, much of it new and never before heard or seen."

Future development includes plans for some Spanish and Portuguese blocks of programming to be available on the Internet site and possible agreements with satellite and/or cable providers.

E-MAIL: taylor@desnews.com