Family Radio

Family Radio's music programming consists mainly of traditional Christian hymns and other genres within Christian music. For decades, Family Radio avoided any types of Contemporary Christian Music and only played traditional. At some points they played small amounts of very light Christian songs from the 70's, but they avoided anything even moderately contemporary, even softer songs within that genre. In the past year, though, softer Contemporary Christian Music from recent years has been added and mixed in with the traditional music. Contemporary Artists being mixed in range from John Michael Talbot, Steve Green, Christine Wyrtzen, to Casting Crowns, MercyMe, Chris Tomlin, among others. They play about 4 an hour.

One of Family Radio's oldest broadcasts was a telephone-talk program called Open Forum in which Harold Camping, the network's co-founder, president and general manager, responded to callers' questions and comments, as they relate to the Bible, and used the platform to promote his various end-time predictions. The program was finally cancelled not long after Camping's third failed "rapture-less" prediction and a stroke which he suffered in June 2011. Other programs that have aired on Family Radio over the years include the morning programs Rise and Rejoice and The Christian Home; Family Bible Reading Fellowship, a half-hour Bible reading program; Radio Reading Circle, featuring readings of Christian books; the overnight program Nightwatch; Echoes, which features recordings of sermons delivered by pastors from churches around the world); Music to Live By, an afternoon program; the nighttime program The Quiet Hours; Family Bible Study; and Beyond Intelligent Design.[1] Family Radio also has broadcast programs and features from outside ministries, including Answers in Genesis, hosted by Ken Ham, as well as teaching programs hosted by James Montgomery Boice, Donald Barnhouse, John F. MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, John Piper, and Alistair Begg. Some of these ministries were reluctant to allow their programs to air on Family Radio until Harold Camping's programs no longer aired.[2][3]

Family Radio relies solely on listener-supported funding and donations, and is unaffiliated with any religious denomination.[4] Outside programming broadcast over the Family Radio network was limited as Camping considered the organized church apostate, and therefore devoid of God's Spirit and under Satan's control.

The listenership of Family Radio understandably declined after the failed 1994 prediction,[5] but before long the organization was growing at a rate much higher than it had previously experienced.[6] In 1958, Camping sold his construction business and, with the funds, purchased KEAR-FM in San Francisco. He then grew his broadcast empire so that by 1994 Family Radio comprised forty radio stations nationwide.[7] Yet, from 1994 to 2009, it grew at an even faster rate than before; by the time of his second campaign, the organization boasted 216 AM and FM radio stations, along with two television channels.[6]

With a growing national profile, the financial viability of the non-profit also grew. Financial strength hit a peak in 2007 when Family Radio reported $135 million in assets.[5] As net assets declined from that point forward, listener contributions steadily increased. In 2008, total contributions were well over $15 million.[8] 2009 saw an annual budget of $36.7 million with $117 million in assets and $18.4 million in contributions.[6] IRS records also indicate that Family Radio employed 348 persons in 2009.[9] In 2010 assets were down to $110 million while contributions rose to $18.7 million while the station maintained 346 employees.[10] In 2011 contributions fell to $17.2 million and assets dropped to $87.6 million, while the organization also lost 26 employees.[11] By the end of 2011 the organizations assets had dropped to $29.2 million, and the next year was forced to take out a $30 million loan.[12] In 2007, the year before the start of the 2011 campaign, Family Radio had its greatest level of assets. Upon the outset of the second campaign, the organizations assets dropped while contributions simultaneously rose indicating an increased level of spending by the organization, far surpassing the increase in income.[6]

Family Radio does not discuss politics directly, campaign for political candidates, or endorse candidates or issues. Family Radio attempts to distance itself from political and social issues.[citation needed]

Originally founded by Richard H. Palmquist, with the assistance of Harold Camping[13] and Lloyd Lindquist as fellow members of the initial Board of Directors, Family Radio began obtaining FM broadcasting licenses on commercial frequencies in 1959,[13] and by 2006, was ranked 19th among top broadcast companies in number of radio stations owned.[14]

In 1958, the radio broadcaster Richard Palmquist met Harold Camping and persuaded him to provide the financial backing needed for them to co-found Family Radio, joined with other individuals of Christian Reformed, Bible Baptist, and Conservative Christian Presbyterian churches to purchase an FM radio station in San Francisco, California, KEAR, then at 97.3 MHz, to broadcast traditional Christian Gospel to the conservative Protestant community and minister to the general public. With the primary purpose of broadcasting doctrines of Christianity reflective of the teachings of the Holy Bible, Family Radio remained independent, never merging with any particular church organization or church denominations.[15] After months of preparations, Family Radio finally came on the air on Wednesday, February 4, 1959.[16]

Through the 1960s, as a ministry, both non-profit organization and non-commercial, Family Radio acquired six additional FM stations and seven other AM stations under guidelines established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).[17] The flagship station for the network of both full-power and low-power translator stations is KEAR in San Francisco (now at 610 kHz, since 2005 at 106.9 MHz). Due to FCC rules regarding translator stations, the legal primary station for the translators was changed to KEAR-FM in Sacramento, after the former primary FM station in San Francisco was sold to CBS Radio.[18]

With the sale of KEAR-FM to CBS Radio in 2005, broadcasts from San Francisco moved to an AM radio frequency.[19]

Many program productions broadcast throughout the Family Radio station network were produced in the Oakland, California facilities. The production process involved pre-recording two weeks of broadcast programming on reel-to-reel tapes distributed to each local Family Radio station for broadcast on the specified date. Free broadcast time was provided by Family Radio to national fundamentalist and evangelical ministries—outside ministries' programs were sent in cassette and reel-to-reel tape formats to respective Family Radio stations for local broadcast. Popular network announcers and the programs they hosted included Jon Arthur (The Quiet Hours, Big Jon & Sparky, Radio Reading Circle); Omar Andeel (The Morning Clock); Harold Hall (The Christian Home); Ken Boone (Music to Live By); Bob Swenson (Transition); and Jerry Edinger (Nightwatch). Each local Family Radio station had local board operators providing world, national, and local news and weather at various intervals throughout the day; regular public service announcements and daily public affairs programming; and local traffic reports via phone call-in during morning and afternoon weekdays. Outside ministry programs included the Focus on the Family daily broadcasts, Freedom Under Fire, Unshackled!, Back to the Bible, Family News in Focus, Beyond Intelligent Design, and "Walk with the King" with Dr. Robert A. Cook. The latter program, originally known as The King's Hour, still airs today, although now often edited in places deemed incompatible with Camping's odd end-times and "apostate church" doctrinal stands.

By the late 1980s, programming was delivered via satellite, local news was taken off the stations in favor of a various national news from a Christian news source, and all but a few local announcements are produced at their Oakland, California facilities.[20]

Beginning in the late 1990s, Family Radio began gradually dropping outside ministries because of doctrinal changes in the ministry. As board members left the ministry, they were not being replaced. Harold Camping's controversial teachings, as they were changing, became the focus of the entire ministry. Up until the late 1980s, Family Radio endorsed local church attendance but once Camping stated the church age was over, he went on to say that Christians should not be members or attend church services of any type. His actions led to mounting criticism from former supporters and led some Family Radio staff members to resign as well as some outside ministries and churches to leave the network. The loss of these programs from the Family Radio schedule gave Camping more airtime to express his teachings.

Most teaching programs were hosted by Camping himself up until June 2011; after Camping suffered a stroke, his programs were gradually phased out. These broadcasts continued to be aired on Family Radio in reruns until the network stopped airing them for good in late 2018.

Music broadcast by Family Radio in the 1960s and 1970s was typical of religious stations, commercial and non-commercial. Some commercial stations played Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) for a few hours a week, but in the 1980s, as commercial and some non-commercial Christian stations evolved to Contemporary formats, Family Radio remained with a mainly traditional music format composed of choir hymns, various Gospel singing groups such as the Bill Gaither Trio, Christian college choirs, instrumental orchestral hymn renditions from conductors such as Paul Mickelson and Ralph Carmichael, vocalists such as George Beverly Shea, Frank Boggs, Doug Oldham, Mahalia Jackson, John McGill, Dave Boyer, and others, and softer urban contemporary gospel songs. From the 1970s onward, Family Radio included a few selected tracks from some lighter contemporary Christian artists such as Maranatha, Pam Mark Hall, Nancy Honeytree, Cynthia Clawson, the New Creation Singers, Ken Medema, Michael Card, and Steve Green, among others. And starting in the late 2010s, Family Radio started playing a handful of Christian music recorded by singers and musicians such as Keith & Kristyn Getty, Fernando Ortega, Sovereign Grace Music, Sara Groves, Selah, and The Master's Chorale. As such, Family Radio maintains a balance in playing traditional and lighter contemporary music on its stations.

In the mid- to late 1970s there began a policy of not announcing the names of artists behind the music aired, forcing listeners to write to Family Radio asking for information about their favorite songs. Presently there is a daily playlist available on the Web site for both East Coast and West Coast broadcasts.

Family Radio's text publications continue to be based on the text of the authorized King James Bible.[21][22] Prerecorded Bible readings broadcast over satellite, shortwave, radio frequencies and the internet are generally based on the Modern King James Bible.[23]

Central to Camping's teaching was the belief that the Bible is the Word of God and completely true. However, he emphasized, this does not mean that each sentence in the Bible is to be understood only literally. Rather, the meaning of individual Biblical passages needs to be interpreted in the light of two factors. The first is the context of the Bible as a whole. The second is its spiritual meaning: in Camping's words, "the Bible is an earthly story with a Heavenly meaning." In Camping's publication, "We are Almost There!",[37] he stated that certain Biblical passages pointed unquestionably to May 21, 2011, as the date of "Rapture", and pointed to October 21, 2011, as the end of the world. This event did not occur on May 21 or October 21 of that year, and no acknowledgment of false teaching has yet been offered concerning the October 21 event.[38] The organization's website became inaccessible early that day, and wasn't reachable until the early morning of May 22.

As a result of spending millions of dollars to promote his "end of the world" theory, many people sold everything they owned and donated it to Family Radio, sometimes even hundreds of thousands of dollars. The California Attorney General's office has been asked by the Freedom from Religion Foundation to investigate Camping and Family Stations, Inc. for "Fraud and Deceit".[39]

After leaving the Christian Reformed Church in 1988, Camping taught doctrines that largely conflicted with doctrines of the Reformed Church and traditional Christian teaching. The principles of Biblical hermeneutics upon which Camping framed his present teachings are:

1. The Bible alone is the Word of God.
2. Every Biblical passage must be interpreted in the light of the Bible as a whole.
3. The Bible normally conveys multiple levels of meaning or significance.[40]
4. Numerology cannot be applied to numbers in the Bible when following the Biblical rules—some individuals have attempted to apply the concept to Camping's research.
5. That salvation is unmerited and cannot be achieved by good works, prayer, belief or acceptance. It is a pure act of God's grace and that those to be saved were chosen "before the foundation of the world". He added conditions to salvation and teaching relative free will of humanity. However, he admitted that some, though very few, could be saved, while still in the worldly churches, just as there would be those saved inside the nation of Israel, and that leaving the churches is something a believer should do, just as a believer should not lie or cheat. He also gave credit to God for what has been called "common grace", where the unsaved, the yet to be saved and the saved are blessed to do good works, but this is not considered the gift of salvation itself.

For several years after Camping's death in 2013, Family Radio continued to air some of his past broadcasts and distribute his literature. But in October 2018, Family Radio discontinued using any of Camping's commentary and content because "so much of it still contains elements that are very difficult." Tom Evans, president and general manager of Family Radio, explained that "Family Radio has come out of self-imposed isolation and we've repented from many of our former positions, date-setting the end of the world and all that, as well as the condemnation of the church".[41]

Map of stations and repeaters in 2016

 United States

Call sign	Frequency	City of license	State	Power (W)	ERP (W)	Height (m (ft))	FCC info
WBFR	89.5 FM	Birmingham	Alabama	—	100	205 m (673 ft)	FCC
KFRB	91.3 FM	Bakersfield	California	—	2,800	417 m (1,368 ft)	FCC
KHAP	89.1 FM	Chico	California	—	12,000	87 m (285 ft)	FCC
KECR	910 AM	El Cajon	California	5,000	—	—	FCC
KFNO	90.3 FM	Fresno	California	—	2,200	594 m (1,949 ft)	FCC
KEFR	89.9 FM	Le Grand	California	—	1,800	653 m (2,142 ft)	FCC
KFRN	1280 AM	Long Beach	California	1,000	—	—	FCC
KEBR	88.1 FM	Sacramento	California	—	8,400	303 m (994 ft)	FCC
KEAR[lower-alpha 1]	610 AM	San Francisco	California	5,000	—	—	FCC
KFRS	89.9 FM	Soledad	California	—	250	93 m (305 ft)	FCC
KPRA	89.5 FM	Ukiah	California	—	1,600	346 m (1,135 ft)	FCC
KFRY	89.9 FM	Pueblo	Colorado	—	870	647 m (2,123 ft)	FCC
WCTF	1170 AM	Vernon	Connecticut	1,000 day 500 c. h.	—	—	FCC
WMFL	88.5 FM	Florida City	Florida	—	7,700	52 m (171 ft)	FCC
WJFR	88.7 FM	Jacksonville	Florida	—	8,000	107 m (351 ft)	FCC
WAMT	1190 AM	Pine Castle/Sky Lake	Florida	4,700 day 230 night	—	—	FCC
WWFR	91.7 FM	Stuart	Florida	—	2,650	152 m (499 ft)	FCC
WJCH	91.9 FM	Joliet	Illinois	—	50,000	151 m (495 ft)	FCC
KDFR	91.3 FM	Des Moines	Iowa	—	32,000	136 m (446 ft)	FCC
KYFR	920 AM	Shenandoah	Iowa	5,000 day 2,500 night	—	—	FCC
WFSI	860 AM	Baltimore	Maryland	2,500 day 66 night	—	—	FCC
WOFR	89.5 FM	Schoolcraft	Michigan	—	10,000	42 m (138 ft)	FCC
KFRD	88.3 FM	Butte	Montana	—	2,800	527 m (1,729 ft)	FCC
KXFR	91.9 FM	Socorro	New Mexico	—	25,000	74 m (243 ft)	FCC
WFME-FM	92.7 FM	Garden City	New York	—	980	135.1 m (443 ft)	FCC
WYMK	106.3 FM	Mt. Kisco	New York	—	2,000	159 m (522 ft)	FCC
WFME	1560 AM	New York City	New York	50,000	—	—	FCC
WFRS	88.9 FM	Smithtown	New York	—	1,500	132 m (433 ft)	FCC
WCUE	1150 AM	Cuyahoga Falls	Ohio	5,000 day 500 night	—	—	FCC
WOTL	90.3 FM	Toledo	Ohio	—	700	115 m (377 ft)	FCC
WYTN	91.7 FM	Youngstown	Ohio	—	900	181 m (594 ft)	FCC
KYOR	88.9 FM	Newport	Oregon	—	35	274 m (899 ft)	FCC
KPFR	89.5 FM	Pine Grove	Oregon	—	2,900	513 m (1,683 ft)	FCC
KQFE	88.9 FM	Springfield	Oregon	—	1,250	290 m (950 ft)	FCC
WEFR	88.1 FM	Erie	Pennsylvania	—	630	131 m (430 ft)	FCC
WKDN	950 AM	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania	43,000 day 21,000 night	—	—	FCC
WFCH	88.5 FM	Charleston	South Carolina	—	29,500	93 m (305 ft)	FCC
KTXB	89.7 FM	Beaumont	Texas	—	9,000	173 m (568 ft)	FCC
KUFR	91.7 FM	Salt Lake City	Utah	—	220	−97 m (−318 ft)	FCC
KJVH	89.5 FM	Longview	Washington	—	100	238 m (781 ft)	FCC
WMWK	88.1 FM	Milwaukee	Wisconsin	—	1,100	276 m (906 ft)	FCC

Notes:

In addition to its full-powered stations, Family Radio is relayed by an additional 27 FM translators:

 United States (translators)

Call sign	Frequency (MHz)	City of license	State	FCC info
K205CI	88.9	Phoenix	Arizona	FCC
K219AO	91.7	Fairmont	California	FCC
K220EY	91.9	Porterville	California	FCC
K268AJ	101.5	Redding	California	FCC
K213BZ	90.5	Richvale	California	FCC
K214CA	90.7	Grand Junction	Colorado	FCC
W271BC	102.1	Lumpkin	Georgia	FCC
W233AD	94.5	Rockford	Illinois	FCC
W295AF	106.9	La Porte	Indiana	FCC
K206DU	89.1	Lafayette	Louisiana	FCC
W252AQ	98.3	Lake Charles	Louisiana	FCC
K216GT	91.1	Great Falls	Montana	FCC
K220GM	91.9	Placitas	New Mexico	FCC
K211GA	90.1	Carson City	Nevada	FCC
W282AD	104.3	East Windham	New York	FCC
W213AC	90.5	Hyde Park, etc.	New York	FCC
K214BO	90.7	Ashland	Oregon	FCC
K223AO	92.5	Florence	Oregon	FCC
K203BE	88.5	Roseburg	Oregon	FCC
W208AF	89.5	Nanticoke	Pennsylvania	FCC
W207AE	89.3	Reading	Pennsylvania	FCC
W218CW	91.5	West Palm Beach	Florida	FCC
K219BX	91.7	El Paso	Texas	FCC
K220EI	91.9	Ogden	Utah	FCC
W207AX	89.3	Burlington	Vermont	FCC
W220BD	91.9	Roanoke	Virginia	FCC
K219CA	91.7	Casper	Wyoming	FCC

International

Family Radio can be heard in English from the following local international stations:

Country	City	Station	Frequency	Day/time
Lesotho	Maseru		1197 kHz	6pm – 9pm and 10pm – 1am
Philippines	Metro Manila	DWSS (Tagalog)	1494 kHz	Weekdays 8pm – 10pm
Russia	Moscow	Center	1503 kHz	Weekdays 11pm – 12:30am and 8pm – 9:00pm

• Official website
• Family Radio's channel on YouTube