PICTURES: Courtesy of United Christian Broadcasters "We believe that we've uncovered no longer a latent demand but an overt demand for a dedicated Christian broadcasting service," says Worby. "It's not your traditional hymns, praise and worship music, but what we would call adult Christian contemporary, which covers just about every genre you can think of including jazz, pop, hip-hop, scar, country, anything."   Ian Worby: "We want to help Christians defend their faith from a Biblical perspective. We want a a choice so people understand that there are different points of view, not just the one that gets forced upon people as being the only point of view."

10th December, 2004

JASON KOUTSOUKIS

Ian Worby has a dream. He wants Christian radio "to be in every house in Australia".

While that might sound far-fetched, the Christian radio network he oversees from the Brisbane suburb of Underwood is gaining ground at an amazing pace.

Worby is the chief executive of United Christian Broadcasters, which runs the national Vision Radio Network.

The broadcaster opened its 196th Australian relay station this week.

Worby says the not-for-profit network is introducing one new relay station a week and has an estimated 200,000 listeners nationwide.

These numbers are expected to swell after the Australian Broadcasting Authority announced that it would auction 13 new transmitter licences for radio services across the country.

The Christian broadcaster will bid for 11 of them, including six in Victorian country towns - Casterton, Yarram, Warracknabeal, Orbost, St Arnaud and Terang - to add to the 14 relay stations it already runs in the state.

The company has also lodged bids for another five relay stations in Queensland, NSW, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

"We believe that we've uncovered no longer a latent demand but an overt demand for a dedicated Christian broadcasting service," says Worby.

"It's not your traditional hymns, praise and worship music, but what we would call adult Christian contemporary, which covers just about every genre you can think of including jazz, pop, hip-hop, scar, country, anything."

He says the network has a series of "excellent Christian musicians and composers to choose from". These included Darlene Zschech from the Hillsong evangelical church in Sydney.

Other artists who featured prominently on the network were Michael W. Smith, PC3, Rebecca St. James and Newsboys, "who would attract as many people to their concerts as U2. Rebecca St. James was voted the most influential Christian artist in the world last year," Worby says.

A part of the New Zealand-based UCB International, the group lists among its goals a desire to "search out opportunities, under God's direction, to establish Christian stations where there is an 'open door' and to birth a work in new areas not adequately covered".

With all programming emanating from the one studio in Brisbane, Worby says the station relays its message via satellite to local broadcast points across the country.

It has a mix of 65 per cent music and 35 per cent talk, and is aimed to appeal to a range of listeners seeking a family-friendly radio experience.

"We stand for traditional family Christian values and we have a lot of spoken word programming which helps us to spread that message," Worby says.

"We want to help Christians defend their faith from a Biblical perspective. We want a a choice so people understand that there are different points of view, not just the one that gets forced upon people as being the only point of view."

A version of this article was first published in The Age newspaper - www.theage.com.au.