Report: End Of The World For Family Radio?

Oakland-based Family Radio, founded more than a half-century ago, built itself into a powerful religious ministry with 66 full-service radio stations, more than 100 FM broadcast relay stations and a handful of television stations across the country. Fourteen shortwave transmitters allowed broadcasts to Africa, Russia and elsewhere in the world.

A lengthy piece in Sunday’s Mercury News points out its stations had no commercials, providing 24-hour, seven-days-a-week Christian programming in 30 languages -- including hymns, Bible teachings and gospel talk shows -- with Camping's "Open Forum" program airing every weeknight for 90 minutes. The nonprofit paid its bills through donors' philanthropy, amassing $216.4 million in donations from 1997 through 2011, according to tax returns (2012 totals are not yet available). On its website and during broadcasts, listeners were told how to donate.

Camping became more engrossed with predictions of Judgment Day as the years passed, espousing multiple possibilities before ultimately focusing on May 21, 2011, as the highly publicized date. Contributions spiked, with stories surfacing across the country of followers donating their life savings, as Family Radio spent prodigiously to publicize the end of the world.

The free spending before May 21 combined with the drop in donations thereafter has left a shell of a nonprofit two years later. Earlier this year, Family Radio sold the last of its three powerhouse East Coast FM stations -- WFME in Newark-New York City, WFSI in Annapolis, Md.-Washington, D.C., and WKDN in Philadelphia -- the nonprofit's cash cows. The New York station was sold to Cumulus Media in January for $40 million, the Philadelphia station went the previous month for $22.5 million to Merlin Media, and the Annapolis station was sold to CBS in November for $8.5 million.

Family Radio kept most of its significantly smaller radio stations and other assets -- even buying some smaller stations -- but has trimmed the on-air staff and cut its international schedule by 80 percent, sources said.

Not everyone predicts Family Radio's demise, however. Board member Tom Evans, who has taken over day-to-day operations since Camping suffered a stroke in June 2011, said Family Radio is hurting like any other nonprofit in this slow-to-rebound economy. But it is not closing, and the financial problems aren't nearly as serious as some allege, said the trustee, who instead envisions a downsized, more efficient ministry emerging.

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Tom's Take: Why does Glenn Beck come into my mind reading this?