RADIO STATION ABRUPTLY PULLS THE PLUG
By Richard C. Dujardin
Journal Religion Writer

Providence Journal, RI
Sept 8 2006

The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson

After providing generations of listeners with a strong mix of religious
and ethnic programming, radio station WRIB AM 1220 did something
quite unexpected two months ago by suddenly going off the air.

The decision to "pull the plug" on a station that had been home to
such shows as the Rev. John Randall’s Sprit and Word, the Armenian
Radio Hour and the Voice of Italy was made by its new owner, the
Faith Christian Center.

The Rev. David Marquard, whose church draws 900 people a week to
its Pentecostalist services on Sagamore Road in Seekonk, says that
when the church bought the station with offices and transmitters on
the East Providence waterfront in July for $1.9 million, it was for
the purpose of bringing the light of the Gospel to as many people as
possible and to "enhance life from a godly perspective."

That’s still the goal, but church leaders acknowledge that getting
the new programming on line has taken longer than expected. They say
it is more likely the station won’t be on the air again at least for
several more weeks.

Critics, including some of former program hosts, say by shutting down
the signal without notice the new owners broke a promise given to the
former station manager, John Pearce, that everyone was going to have
at least 30 days to bid farewell.

Instead, they say, the end came without warning and those with
belongings at the site were given only a few hours to remove their
possessions.

FATHER RANDALL said he only found out about the move when someone
asked him why his show wasn’t on the air.

"There were a lot of angry people," says the retired priest, whose
ministry at St. Patrick Church in Providence and then at St. Charles
Borromeo Church in Providence helped to fuel the Catholic charismatic
renewal movement in the 1970s and 1980s.

But the 77-year-old priest refused to join other critics, who in
e-mails and blogs, have been quick to denounce the Faith Christian
Center for doing a "dirty thing."

He says that, as a large church, Faith Christian was probably looking
for a way to get out its message and owning a radio station appeared to
be one way of doing that. He said it’s unlikely that the new owners
would want to continue a Catholic program on what will be a basic
evangelical station, and he has no problem with that.

"I’m sure if the shoe were on the other foot and Mother Angelica (the
Catholic nun who runs the Eternal Word Televsion Network) bought the
station, she would only want Catholic programs," he said.

Typically, the programs pay the station to put their shows on the
air. The old WRIB charged roughly $151 per show per week. Pastor
Marquard said one can assume that the station will want programs
that fit its evengelical pentecostalist perspective, but shows will
be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Father Randall says he wrote the pastor a letter, saying he has asked
his supporters to pray for the station and the minister. "I wrote,
‘As long as you proclaim Christ, we’ll be happy with it.’"

BUT SOME of the other show hosts are not so happy, and don’t accept
the Pastor Marquard’s explanation that the move was on the advice of
the church’s lawyers who said the church might be opening itself to
possible "harm" if it let the shows continue.

"It was an unfortunate, difficult decision," says the pastor. "Our goal
was not to shortchange people or deny them an opportunity to speak to
their listeners. The only reason we went dark was our attorney told us
that, because we owned the station, we could liable for anything said
over the air. We didn’t want anything to be said that intentionally
harmed us."

"Frankly we diligently try to be a blessing to the community as much
as we can. Our goal is to be a blessing. If we hurt people it was
never our intention."

The pastor said he appreciated the note from Father Randall. "I’m a
former Catholic and I used to listen to his Spirit and Word. He was
an influence on my life. He is a very gracious man."

Russell Gasparian, who began airing the Armenian Hour nearly 60 years
ago, back in the days when WRIB was based in Providence’s Narragansett
Hotel, said he was very upset with the church for not giving him a
chance to tell his listeners goodbye.

"It’s a dirty trick that they used," said the Gasparian, 87. "It’s
the worst thing they could have done."

The Armenians, he said, a close knit community in Rhode Island,
relied on his show to tell them what was going on.

It was much the same with Radio Italia, Rhode Island’s Voice of Italy,
hosted by MariaGina Aiello.

But according to the hosts, the future is not totally bleak. The two
have found a new home on radio station WARL AM 1320, airing Sundays.

Gasparian observed that since the show began airing on the new station
he has gotten calls from people in New England states that apparently
hadn’t heard the program before. And his son, a webmaster, has for the
last couple years put the shows on the Internet, reaching listeners
as far away as Russia and Belgium.

Silvio Cuellar produces a fast-paced Hispanic program, Pueblo Que
Camina, sponsored by the Diocese of Providence’s Office of Hispanic
Ministry. It was, he says, the area’s first Hispanic Catholic program,
offering Bible reflection, interviews and local and national television
news.

HE SAID that when he found that Saturday in July that the show wasn’t
on the air, he was upset and disappointed. "I thought it was a very
unchristian and cruel thing to do."

But after being off the air for three weeks, he says, he’s found a
new home on WELH 88.1 FM airing 8 a.m. Saturday mornings.

Of all the former host/producers, the biggest provider of religious
programming on WRIB was John Primeau, whose Johnston-based North
American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation provides
programming on 200 channels in 25 states. Primeau said he was paying
the station $15,000 annually to run 10 half-hour programs on WRIB each
week – a wide assortment featuring Catholic priests and lay women
on topics ranging from the role of women in the church today, the
theology and traditions of Roman Catholicism, and priestly vocations.

When he heard the station had been sold he sent letter both to the
church and the former owner, Carter Broadcasting in Boston, warning
that he would consider any interruption of service to be a breach of
his contract. Primeau, who has successfully sued other communications
giants such as Sprint, promptly followed up with a suit seeking
unspecified damages.

He says that even though the shows can no longer be heard over WRIB,
most were audio broadcasts of televised programs produced in his
studios and which air regularly on the state cable TV interconnect
as well as over the Internet. Even so, he contends that WRIB’s
interruption of service diminished his listening audience and he
wants to be "made whole" by having the programs returned to the air,
along with advertising from the church.

Primeau said that while most Catholic parishes would not be able to
afford buying a station, very successful Pentecostal churches can
pull it off because they garner more cash from members’ tithing and
many Pentecostal pastors started out as entrepreneurs.

Faith Christian’s Pastor Marquard said the church did have to borrow to
buy the station. Once it begins to air, perhaps with new call letters,
it will feature a "variety" of programming, with a drive-time format
that includes news, weather, traffic and music.

"Probably from 8 a.m. to noon we will have paid programming, Gospel
ministers and so on, almost all of whom would not be local; and a
host from Focus on the Family from 8 p.m. to midnight.

He said he expects to have his own 15-minute program each weekday,
airing sometime between 8 and 9 a.m.

"" But some of the other show hosts are not so happy, and don’t
accept Pastor Marquard’s explanation that the move was on the advice
of the church’s lawyers who said the church might be opening itself
to possible ‘harm’ if it let the shows continue.""