Good, thorough piece on Catholic radio by Valerie Schmalz, over at Ignatius Insight:

Ave Maria Radio in Michigan, Starboard Network – which operates Relevant Radio from Green Bay, Wisconsin – Immaculate Heart Radio, and St. Louis-based Covenant Network are the major Catholic radio station networks. There are many more individual Catholic radio stations. Most rely on EWTN for a large portion of their base programming, and some also supply local programming. While most of the Catholic radio stations are independently owned non-profit stations, there are seven diocesan radio stations, mostly in Texas and Florida, directly under the local bishop’s operational control.

In a way, Catholic radio in New Mexico is something of a hybrid. Santa Fe Archbishop Michael Sheehan asked Immaculate Heart Radio, which owns stations in California and Nevada, to collaborate with the archdiocese. The Archdiocese of Santa Fe raised $1 million to purchase a 100,000 watt FM station in Milan, New Mexico, as well as stations and translators to spread the signal, and then handed the station over to IHR to own and operate the stations in cooperation with the archdiocese. This is the first time lay Catholic radio people and a bishop have collaborated in such a unique relationship. IHR president Sherman predicts, "This thing is going to snowball. The first few years, the bishops didn’t know what to do with us, they didn’t know if we were vigilantes."

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