Christian radio

Christian radio is a category of radio formats that focus on transmitting programming with a Christian message. In the United States, where it is most established, many such broadcasters play popular music of Christian influence, though many programs have talk or news programming covering associated topics that can have an economic or a political angle to them.

Business models

Brokered programming is a significant portion of most US Christian radio stations' revenue, with stations regularly selling blocks of airtime to evangelists seeking an audience. Another revenue stream is solicitation of donations, either to the evangelists who buy the air time or to the stations or their owners themselves. (In order to further encourage donations, less scrupulous evangelists may emphasize the prosperity gospel, in which they preach that tithing and donations to the ministry will result in financial blessings from God.) Although the solicitation of donations and the sale of airtime may resemble a commercial enterprise, such actions do not necessarily constitute a call to action, and thus this does not forbid them from airing on noncommercial licensed stations in the US. A minority of stations (almost all of them music stations) use the traditional model for music radio and allow traditional commercial advertising.