The New York Times has just published a piece on the trend of evangelical broadcasters forcing smaller non-commercial stations off the air in order to squeeze more proselytizing-nodes on the dial. It demonstrates increasing interest in the proliferation of translator stations by religious broadcasters.
On the translator front, the FCC’s temporary freeze on processing the avalanche of applications from 2003 has had no effect on the selling of translator construction permits: REC’s Traffic Report shows deals every month throughout the summer and fall.
Others digging into these transactions believe there may be previously-undiscovered links between some of the major translator-traffickers and third parties to which they are unloading some of their spectrum boodle. Some of these third parties may be intermediaries, feeding a stream of new translator permits to evangelical broadcast networks in such a way so as to not arouse suspicion (as would occur were the transactions to be attempted directly and simultaneously).
The FCC shows no signs of taking the channel-grab underway seriously. Some of the most egregious traffickers expect to be doing business for the foreseeable future: both Radio Assist Ministry and World Radio Link, Inc. are registered exhibitors at next year’s National Religious Broadcasters annual convention in Dallas.
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