KNLS

Lore & Background

The concept for KNLS originated during World War II when Maurice Hall, a young Army Signal Corps officer, helped deliver shortwave transmitters to the Yalta Conference to keep President Franklin D. Roosevelt informed of news from Washington. Hall, a devout Christian, envisioned using shortwave radio to broadcast Christian programming worldwide. After the war, he worked as a minister, educator, and missionary while nurturing this vision. In 1976, World Christian Broadcasting Corporation was formed, and the following year, founding director Lowell Perry died in a plane crash while searching for a transmitter site.

Land was purchased in Alaska in 1979, and a transmitter was built. KNLS began broadcasting on July 23, 1983, initially airing ten hours daily in Mandarin Chinese and Russian, later adding English. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, listeners from former Soviet bloc countries began requesting religious materials, including Bibles. A second transmitter was installed in Alaska in 2005.

Initially, contributors were located across the United States, but in 1989 a new Programming Center was established in Franklin, Tennessee, with recording studios and offices for permanent staff. Writers from around the world now contribute to the broadcast schedule. The organization has received responses from listeners in every country worldwide. A new facility in Madagascar is being developed with three antennae to broadcast throughout Europe, Western Asia, the Middle East (in Arabic), Africa, India, and South America, expected to reach approximately eighty percent of the global population once operational in 2011.

Reader's Guide

KNLS occupies a distinctive niche in international shortwave broadcasting as a religious station that explicitly does not solicit donations from its audience, instead funded by contributions from individuals, churches, and other groups. It provides requested Bibles and other materials to listeners free of charge. The station's programming follows a magazine-style format featuring Bible teachings, religious segments, reports on life in America, and music. The Chinese broadcast, hosted by Ed Ho, includes segments such as Spiritual Stories, Daily Bread, Happy Family, and an English tutorial, along with hymns.

The Russian broadcast, hosted by Constantin Chernushenko (a physician by training), features Famous Russians, Book of Books, Parables of Jesus, and reports from science and entertainment. The English broadcast, produced and co-hosted by Rob Scobey with Lucy Grant, includes Author’s Journal, First Person, Profiles in Christian Music, and a prayer lesson by evangelist Andy Baker. This prayer lesson was heard by missionary Gracia Burnham during her captivity by terrorist rebels in the Philippines, and she references the broadcast in her book In the Presence of My Enemies. The station's reach and listener engagement are evidenced by responses from every country worldwide, and its planned Madagascar facility aims to extend coverage to approximately eighty percent of the global population.