Washington DC Finally Gets a Catholic Radio Station

The station becomes one of approximately 165 Catholic Radio Stations in the U.S. In 2007, there were only 7, according to the Catholic Radio Association.

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WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Catholic Radio has come to the nation's capital this week on WMET, 1160 AM. The station was purchased by Dallas-based Huffines Media and will be operated by the Guadalupe Radio Network out of Midland Texas, which runs 13 stations in Texas.

The new station, which runs 50 thousand watts power in the daytime and 1500 watts at night from a transmitter in Gaithersburg, has established an office in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Len Oswald, president of Guadalupe, told the Washington Times, "Spiritually, we were led to put a station in Washington. We felt there was a strong need in our nation's capital to have Catholic radio." WMET will function as a part of the EWTN Radio Network which provides the programming content.

Catholic apologist and publisher of Envoy Magazine, Patrick Madrid, stated on his blog yesterday, "It will be very interesting to see how this new influx of robust, orthodox, aredently pro-life Catholic voices (Fr. Corapi, Scott Hahn, Catholic Answers Live, etc.) will be received by the locals, especially by those CINO types [Editor's note: "Catholic in name only"] who infest the corridors of power in that town. (Take note, Nancy Pelosi!)"

Madrid's new "Open Line" program also debuts on EWTN at the same time the new station goes live.

The Guadalupe Radio Network was established by the La Promesa Foundation, a non-profit organization established in May 1996 by a group of lay Catholics. The Foundation chose the name "La Promesa" in reference to a promise they made in their mission statement, requesting the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The opportunity to Catholic Radio came after Donald Huffines, a Catholic convert, was approached two years ago by Guadalupe Radio about assisting them in this endeavor. Huffines Media, owned by land developers and brothers, Donald and Phillip, who is Protestant, purchased the station in February for $4 million from CTM Media Holdings. WMET had gone through a number of format changes over the years including all-comedy, conservative talk and multicultural programming.

For those watching the development of Catholic Radio through Holy Family Communications in Arlington, who currently broadcast via the Internet, the news of this new station was a bit of a surprise. Holy Family has reported that applications were pending before the FCC for FM stations in Warrenton and Orange, VA. Their hope was also to find a station to purchase in the Washington metropolitan area.

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