Broadcast Work
Adventist World Radio
Radio Broadcasts
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Adventist World Radio began broadcasting October 1, 1971, when the Seventh-day Adventist Church leased time on a 250 kilowatt shortwave transmitter at Radio Trans Europe in Sines, Portugal, aiming programs at Eastern Europe and the USSR in ten languages for twelve hours a week. The project followed a 1969 General Conference feasibility study; H. M. S. Richards Sr., founder of the church's older Voice of Prophecy radio program, was among those who pushed for it. No dedicated Seventh-day Adventist Church denomination entity exists in the atlas today; this entity is linked instead to the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, its administering body.
Facts
Production
Release Year Country of OriginPortugal (first shortwave transmission site; the administering church is headquartered in the United States) 1 FormatSourced to the subject's own account LanguageTen languages by January 1975; more than one hundred languages today. 1 Subject Matter
Religious Subject MatterSeventh-day Adventist evangelism and Sabbath observance teaching, broadcast internationally. 1 Scholarly ReceptionSourced to the subject's own accountCited as the Seventh-day Adventist Church's primary international shortwave and multilingual broadcasting arm, expanding from ten to over a hundred languages within its first half century. 2 Status
Still Running Learn More
Ten Languages From a Rented Transmitter in Portugal
In 1969 the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists set up a committee to study something the denomination had never attempted: a worldwide shortwave broadcasting service that could reach believers and potential converts behind borders an ordinary missionary could not cross. H. M. S. Richards Sr., the founder of the church's older Voice of Prophecy radio program, was among those who had pushed for the idea. Two years of planning produced a working broadcast rather than only a proposal.
On October 1, 1971, Adventist World Radio went on the air for the first time, leasing a 250 kilowatt Marconi transmitter from Radio Trans Europe in Sines, Portugal, and aiming its signal at Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, territory largely closed to open religious broadcasting at the time. The first programs went out in ten languages, twelve hours a week, a modest schedule built for audiences the Adventist Church could reach no other way. By January 1975 that had grown to twenty languages, and the network went on to build its own dedicated shortwave transmitting station on the Pacific island of Guam, extending its reach across Asia.
Adventist World Radio's growth since has tracked the collapse of exactly the kind of closed borders it was built to cross. It now broadcasts in more than one hundred languages through a combination of shortwave transmitters, podcasts and a partner network of more than 1,700 AM and FM stations worldwide, still administered by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists as its primary vehicle for international broadcasting, more than half a century after that first rented transmitter in Portugal went on the air.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Eastern Europe directly: "in Sines, Portugal, aiming programs at Eastern Europe and the USSR in ten languages for twelve hours a week."
This source names Europe directly: "shortwave transmitter at Radio Trans Europe in Sines, Portugal, aiming programs at Eastern Europe and the USSR in ten languages for twelve hours a week."
This source names Portugal directly: "at Radio Trans Europe in Sines, Portugal, aiming programs at Eastern Europe and the USSR in ten languages for twelve hours a week."
Belongs to Tradition
Product Of
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.