ARTICLES

We'll Train Them as We Go

'NO WAFFLING' ON NEW RADIO NETWORK

By Christopher Zehnder

What can one expect from a Catholic radio station? Bill McMahon, program consultant for the newly inaugurated Catholic Radio Network said of his station's line-up, "we're running Gregorian Chant for a couple of weeks. That's all we did was Gregorian Chant, 24 hours a day." Hardly the top 40, but piping plainsong over the Father Joseph Fessio-led network's seven stations (including KPLS, 830 AM in Los Angeles) served a purpose. "There were a lot of people thinking we were nuts," said McMahon,"but there were a lot of people going, 'Whoa! I wonder what this is going to be?' And they keep tuning in and tuning in to see if we are going to change and to see what it might be.

"For the next two weeks," said McMahon, the network played "non-stop Bishop Sheen, the best of Bishop Sheen. It's just Bishop Sheen talking to you." While some might find such fare cloying, McMahon explained that when they first start out, even secular music stations, which might normally play 300 to 400 songs, will play "only 100 for the first month or two, so that every time casual listeners tune in, they go, 'Whoa, that's my favorite song. I can't believe they're playing it. People don't just come over and rivet their dial to this new station. They will tune it in occasionally... So we're trying to get some attention with Bishop Sheen. We think that people who haven't heard him are going to go, 'What is this? This is unusual!'" Of course, such programming was not intended to remain standard.

On December 14, the network was to begin its normal line up, which would be what McMahon called primarily "spoken word programming"-- talk radio. "Our whole attempt," said McMahon, "is to try and talk about the intersection of real life and faith and the vital role that faith ought to play in your life and talk about specific, real-life situations. We want to see life through the eyes of the Catholic faith, bring in current events, bring in things that happened in the lives of the hosts."

The hosts McMahon wants for the network's shows are "interesting personalities that, in terms of their appeal and personality, might be on a par with Doctor Laura [Schlesinger] and Rush Limbaugh.... kind of bigger than life, interesting personalities that will be the first connection to the audience. Like Bishop Sheen. His personality was just huge, and one that was absolutely captivating, and it kind of got you interested. With his 'Life is Worth Living' program, he talked about real life, his insight on real life and how faith really determined whether you were happy and peaceful and whether you were living a worthwhile and satisfying kind of life." Shows hosted by such personalities are meant to attract listeners with little or no knowledge or background in the Catholic faith, which means the typical parochial Catholic.

"Our approach," said McMahon, "is what I would characterize as entry-level faith, not a real advanced kind of intellectual discussion of all the fine points of the teachings and traditions of the Church. We'll get into all these things, but it really is more of a starting point. Unfortunately, we found that of all Christian religions probably Catholics know the least about their religion. They're mainly 'cafeteria Catholics,' 'habit Catholics,' people that kind of go through the rituals, but when asked to explain what it all means and why they're doing it, they're clueless." So, said McMahon, the focus will be on such questions, as "Why does my twelve-year old have cancer? Is God punishing me? How do I react to this? What does this mean to me in my life? How can I actually get through this and what role does Faith play in that? We'll get into [Catholic teachings], but we'll more bring them in the backdoor rather than make that where we start talking to people." Though Catholic Radio Network will not "shy away" from any topic, said McMahon, their goal is not polemics or internecine Church controversy. "We're going to talk about the basics of faith, the things we do agree on and, again how faith can contribute to the only true happiness you might have in life."

The programming McMahon envisions is in a different league than most "religious" broadcasting. "I've tried to listen to a lot of this Christian radio," he said. "It's not very interesting to listen to. It's a very dry, kind of clinical presentation, or it's some kind of fire-and-brimstone thing where you've got some guy who sounds like he's in an echo chamber trying to talk like God from a mountain. We're trying to marry the successful elements of secular talk radio with the faith-based content missing in secular talk radio. One of the problems with many radio people is that while they know how to do the basic radio stuff, they don't have the personality or critical thinking skills to put on a program that leads and inspires and persuades and entertains. Most talk shows are superficial. They try to contrive controversy. You get people to call and scream and yell at each other."

Among the personalities McMahon has lined up is Minnesotan John Crudele,who addresses youth and parents on morals, abstinence, and drugs. Another host with whom McMahon is negotiating is a man who performs spontaneous dramas to illustrate points he wishes to make about the Faith. "He'll just break into a little drama," said McMahon, "in which he plays two or three different people's parts. He will break out his guitar and will do a spontaneous song to communicate a point." Talk-show host and former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes may host a show for the network. Keyes, said McMahon, is interested in Catholic family radio because his current talk show is "more secular than he wanted it to be." McMahon said he is interested in having Keyes, in part, because "we don't want to be labeled as another conservative political voice-- our message is more basic than politics." He hopes that Keyes will be able to direct his talents to real life issues that go beyond politics. The current line-up of hosts, said McMahon, except for Keyes, has no radio experience.

"We'll train them as they go,"said McMahon. There's no great magic to learning how to talk on the radio. If someone has a gift for communicating and intelligence and is curious and has life experience and ideas and understands the Catholic faith, he can learn how to turn on a microphone." Since 1969, McMahon has been involved in radio in Seattle, Southern California, and Chicago. Currently he travels the country as a consultant to radio stations.

In 1983, McMahon met Rush Limbaugh when Limbaugh was in Kansas City "buried in a job where he was reading the news." Limbaugh, said McMahon, was about to be fired because he "had a very difficult time keeping from expressing his opinion in the newscasts. I had not met him at this point; I was merely a consultant to the operation. For a long time I've had this theory that if radio management is about to fire somebody, and I don't know them well, I better get to know them quick because they may be among the more talented people in the building. I sat down with Rush, and after about an hour I was absolutely captivated by the man and his talent. We made a deal that he'd stop editorializing in his newscast if I could find him an outlet for his opinions, which I did, and it led to a talk show. Unfortunately, he was a little ahead of his time and he got fired anyway, about a year later. My partner in the business was working with a station in Sacramento, and we got him on out there as a talk-show host, replacing Morton Downey, Jr, which made Rush look fairly tame." It was Limbaugh's Sacramento show that was the springboard for his nationally-syndicated program.

A little over a year ago, the syndicator for Dr. Laura Schlesinger became concerned over Schlesinger's increasing references to her Judaism on the air, and sought McMahon's opinion. "I helped them craft a research project," said McMahon, "and provided some advice to Dr. Laura based on my own observations and that of the research.One of the interesting things (and it may have led me to getting involved in [the Catholic Radio Network] in some way) is I found that Dr. Laura's constant references to being an orthodox Jew-- much of the foundation for her advice came from her faith-- was anything but off-putting. In fact, it was something people respected and appreciated: that at least she had a basis for her advice and her belief... that it was black and white, and there was no waffling."

McMahon conducted this research while he was becoming more serious about being Catholic. Raised a Catholic, McMahon said "I faithfully went to Mass every Sunday because I was told to and I went to catechism class: I hated it but knew I had to go. I raised my kids in the same way, unfortunately. Then I kind of fell away from the Church and stopped going to Mass for a period of about 10 years.

"Then I was doing a talk show myself in San Diego, and in the course of doing that program, which was a three-hour program every Saturday and Sunday, I found myself doing a lot of preparation and trying to know as much or more than the audience, at least in a few areas. Between my life experience and my reading I kept encountering the Pope, and this a few months after he released Crossing the Threshold of Hope. Everything he was saying was making so much sense to me. I picked up the book and read it-- a very difficult read, I must say, for a man with my vocabulary; I had to have a dictionary at my side to understand virtually every sentence. Then I read three or four other books that he wrote and started going back to Mass, got involved in a men's group where I started reading the Bible, following the daily readings-- I began to understand what being Catholic was all about, at least to some degree, and enjoyed going to Mass, even though the homily sometimes wasn't very good: I had actually done the readings and thought about them and could give myself a homily, if I needed it."

After his "reversion" to the Church, McMahon said he began to look for ways to use his talent in service to God. "I started teaching CCD, and found that, at least the fifth-grade class that they gave me was not exactly the best place for me to utilize my skills and what I knew." It was then he read about the Catholic Radio Network in a trade journal and decided to find out about it. "I offered my services," said McMahon, "and, lo and behold, I became involved with it more deeply. I expected this would be one of a number of clients, and it's ended up taking up about half my time. It may end up taking more than that, before it's all over."

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