Making a Splash on the Airwaves

When the radio ratings came out in January, recalls Mary Guthrie, general manager for the Radio Nueva Vida Network, a call came in from a puzzled Arbitron official who asked: “Who are you guys?”

Good question.

Radio Nueva Vida’s newest Spanish-language station, KLTX-AM (1390), had jumped into 35th place (of 52 stations) in Los Angeles during its first three months of broadcasting, according to Arbitron.

During the latest ratings period, the station slipped to 42nd place. But what has caught observers’ attention is that the station has the No. 1 ranking for listener loyalty: Its fans tune to KLTX an average of 16 hours per week, Arbitron says.

“That’s a pretty good rating for a radio station that’s just starting,” said Andres Panasiuk, president of the Hispanic National Religious Broadcasters Assn. “It means they are making a dent in the local market.”

Radio Nueva Vida, the first 24-hour Spanish-language radio station in California, offers a mix of eclectic Christian music in Spanish, biblical teaching and practical information on health, education and immigration issues.

Pastors and others credit the network, whose 19 stations simulcast to heavily Latino areas across California, with bringing the Latino church community together.

“First of all, it has united the Hispanic evangelical community in Southern California,” said Daniel de Leon, senior pastor of Templo Calvario, a mega-church in Santa Ana. “Second, it’s provided Spanish Christian radio that we really didn’t have before. Now anybody can tune in--even in the middle of the night.”

The network’s roots go back 14 years to when a Ventura County elementary school teacher and his wife--both committed Christians with no experience in broadcasting, no ties to the Latino community and no fluency in Spanish--created a nonprofit organization and received an available noncommercial frequency, KMRO-FM (90.3), in Camarillo.

Before their first broadcast, they decided to create a Spanish-language Christian station.

“It was the miracle of Ventura County,” said Phil Guthrie, 55, now retired from teaching, as he explained the birth of the station. “And we felt led by God to give this station away to the Hispanic people.”

Mary Guthrie, 47, said that because she and her husband grew up in Southern California, they both knew the importance of Latinos to the community and how they were underserved by the media.

“There’s not a lot of access in radio to the word of God in Spanish,” she said.

Los Angeles is fertile ground for a Spanish-language station. One outlet, KSCA-FM (101.9), is No. 1 in the market, and another, KLVE-FM (107.5), is tied for second.

Spanish-language religious programming is one of the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. radio market: More than 100 stations across the nation broadcast Christian programs at least part-time in Spanish, Latino broadcasting executive Panasiuk said.

But growth for Radio Nueva Vida came slowly in its first decade.

The station’s small budget didn’t allow Guthrie to leave his teaching post for nine years. His wife ran the station, quickly learning how to cue up a record, take a transmitter reading, and speak Spanish. She earned $2,600 her first year.

“During this time, we walked through the fire,” Phil Guthrie said.

Five years ago, the network’s board of directors decided that if Radio Nueva Vida wanted to be self-sustaining, its programming needed to reach a bigger Latino population to attract more listener donations and corporate sponsorship.

One of the major supporters of the expansion was Roland Hinz, a 62-year-old German immigrant and Pasadena resident. He made his fortune with Hi-Torque Publications, which include Dirt Bike and Motocross Action magazines.

He saw the large Spanish-speaking population in California as “a vast mission field.”

“Part of the frustration has been we don’t have visionaries who see Latinos here as a harvest field [for new believers],” Hinz said. “We didn’t find many donors who cared enough.”

Hinz has assisted the network in quietly piecing together a chain of 15 so-called translators--mini-stations as tiny as 4 watts that cost about $20,000 each and broadcast Radio Nueva Vida’s signal--in such towns as Los Banos, Santa Barbara, Salinas and Victorville. He also helped Radio Nueva Vida purchase full-service stations in Fresno and Bakersfield for an undisclosed sum.

But their budget hadn’t allowed the broadcasts to crack the biggest Latino market in California: Los Angeles. A radio station in Los Angeles would boost the network’s potential Latino listener base from 2 million to 8 million overnight.

“It was too expensive,” Panasiuk said. “For a Spanish-language religious station, you have to either pull together a lot of resources or have a miracle. I think Radio Nueva Vida had a little bit of both.”

It was God who delivered a Los Angeles station to Radio Nueva Vida, the Guthries said, through the generosity of Hinz, who spent $30 million in September to purchase KLTX-AM (1390). The station already was broadcasting Christian programming in English and Spanish. The station’s signal can be heard throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“If you looked for a business rationale for buying the station, no one in their right mind would invest,” Hinz said. “But I never had the slightest doubt that I needed to do this.”

He leased the air time back to Radio Nueva Vida, on whose board of directors he serves. The station is losing “considerable” money in its start-up phase, but Hinz said he has covered the losses and expects to do so for a few years.

More than 40% of Radio Nueva Vida listeners are Catholic, and the station programmers are careful to avoid criticizing any Christian denomination. Its family-friendly programming also draws many unchurched listeners looking for a cleaner brand of radio.

The station receives 3,000 letters a month. Some are from prisoners writing about how much the broadcasts mean to them. A petition signed by more than 100 inmates in the Lancaster state prison asked the station in that High Desert city to boost its signal to get through the thick walls.

The network sponsored a summit for pastors last fall in Pasadena that drew 2,800 people. Another conference is scheduled for May 26.

The network hopes to expand in other communities with large Latino populations, officials said, with San Diego an obvious target.

“We believe there’s a favor of God upon the Hispanic people,” Phil Guthrie said.