[HCDX] God tunes into the digital age

["Alokesh Gupta" <alokeshgupta@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

God tunes into the digital age
----------------------------
By Deborah Cameron
June 16 2003

In Australia's new northern bible belt, happiness is a warm transmitter. From Darwin and Kununurra, two big Christian missionary broadcasters want to win souls in Asia and this week their on-air evangelism enters the digital age.
"It will make a huge change in short-wave broadcasting because it will be as clear as an FM signal on a local station," said the director of ministries at HCJB World Radio, Dennis Adams.
As anyone with a short wave radio knows, an analog signal is prone to fade, whistle or erupt into static. From this week short-wave licence holders can begin broadcasting in digital format.
Mr Adams, who doubles as station manager of HCJB's six-month-old Kununurra transmitter, describes digital as a "real breakthrough", especially for radio missionaries.
The other big broadcaster, Voice International, beams programs in Indonesian, English, Chinese and Hindi from its Darwin transmitter into a region with a population of 2.8 billion.
The audience has grown most rapidly in Indonesia, says Voice International spokesman Richard Daniel.
Partly this is due to the popularity of radio host Riady, who Mr Daniel describes as "an Indonesian John Laws" recruited by talent scouts in Perth. It is also because of a playlist that, though sprinkled with religious crooners, features Coldplay and Avril Lavigne.
By comparison, HCJB (which stands for Heralding Christ Jesus's Blessing) plays country music, middle of the road classics and national folk songs.
Both want to expand. In East Timor, Voice is setting up a Portuguese language broadcaster and has used its network to recruit 50 pastors from Brazil who are in East Timor building schools, Mr Daniel said.
Mr Daniel, who hails from Broken Hill where he owns the secular 2BH and Hill FM and has a 26-year history in radio, signed onto Christian broadcasting last year. 
He says that for the modern missionary, radio, email and SMS go hand in hand with field work.
Both organisations are phenomenally wealthy. They expanded to Australia after a 1999 law allowed broadcasters other than the ABC to transmit internationally. 
While they face obstacles with digital broadcasts because listeners need to have a digital receiver, both networks are so well organised and funded that they are understood to be prepared to provide receivers or at least subsidise their $100 cost.

(Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 15 Jun 2003)

Regds,
Alokesh Gupta
New Delhi, India.




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