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Religious broadcasting
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===United Kingdom=== Religious broadcasting in the UK was established on 30 July 1922, a Sunday, when the first radio sermon was transmitted by J. Boon of the Peckham Christian Union, from the Burdette Aerial Works at [[Blackheath, London|Blackheath]], to the congregation at Christ Church, [[Peckham]], and listeners up to 100 miles distant.<ref>{{Cite Q|Q112427565}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Sermon by Wireless, Clothes-Prop Aerial on London Church |work=The Times |issue=43097 |date=31 July 1922 |page=8}}</ref> The religious ethos of the [[BBC|British Broadcasting Corporation]], and the importance attributed to the place of its religious output is predominantly due to the distinctive and formative role played by the BBC's first director-general, [[John Reith, 1st Baron Reith|John Reith]]. Reith was the son of a Presbyterian minister. Although opposed to narrow dogmatism, he strongly believed that it was a public service duty of the BBC to actively promote religion. The pattern established by Reith in the early days, and the advisory system that he established, continued to exert a strong influence on the corporation's religious output through the war years and beyond, and eventually extend from radio into television. British broadcasting laws prohibit religious organizations, political parties, local government, and trade unions from running national analog terrestrial stations. Some religious radio stations are available in certain areas on the MW (medium wave) or VHF (FM) wavebands; others transmit using other methods, some of them nationally (such as via digital terrestrial TV broadcasting, satellite, and cable). [[Premier Christian Radio|Premier Radio]] is available on MW in the London area and also nationally on DAB. [[United Christian Broadcasters]] is available in both the London and Stoke-on-Trent areas, and nationally as well via [[Digital Audio Broadcasting|DAB.]] [[TWR-UK]] is available on Sky, Freeview, Freesat and online. There are several UK-based radio stations that serve a genre group or locality, such as [[Cross Rhythms]] based in Stoke-on-Trent, a contemporary music station with a local FM [[community radio]] license. Branch FM operates across West Yorkshire and is a volunteer-run community [[Christian radio]] station. Like most other local Christian stations, they also use the Internet to gain national coverage. There are other UK-based radio channels which apply for regular temporary licenses, such as Flame FM on the Wirral, Cheshire which applies for two months of local FM broadcasting per year via a Restricted Service Licence (RSL), and [[Refresh FM]], which regularly broadcasts in [[Manchester]] for 3 or 4 weeks over the [[Easter]] period. Also, there are religious broadcasters that transmit to the UK from outside on medium wave at night (when MW signals travel much further) by buying airtime on commercial stations such as [[Manx Radio]] (from the Isle of Man) and [[Trans World Radio]] (from Monte Carlo). Although there are tight restrictions on religious groups setting up their own radio and TV stations, there is a legal requirement for the [[BBC]] and [[ITV (TV network)|ITV]] to broadcast a certain amount of religious programming. Some commercial local radio stations carry a limited amount of religious programming, particularly in [[Northern Ireland]] and parts of [[Scotland]].
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