Florida Catholic | Tune In New Catholic Radio: WDMC 920 AM

Tune in new Catholic radio: WDMC 920 AM

The new station will be in broadcast range of 30 parishes in the dioceses of Palm Beach and Orlando.

BENNET BOLTON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 04.18.08

Courtesy Photo
Bob Groppe, president of Divine Mercy Radio, in the control room of WDMC.

MELBOURNE | The “new evangelization” is now coming over the airwaves in southeastern Florida in the form of WDMC 920 AM, the new local Catholic radio station launched March 30.

Operated by the nonprofit Divine Mercy Communications, the station reaches hundreds of thousands of people across the Diocese of Palm Beach and the eastern part of the Diocese of Orlando.

Both Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito of the Diocese of Palm Beach and Bishop Thomas Wenski of the Diocese of Orlando have given their approval and blessing in letters sent to parishes.

“The mission is to use local radio as a means of evangelization in service to the Catholic Church,” said Bishop Barbarito.

“The programming will be aired with my approval,” said Bishop Wenski in a similar statement.

Organizers say that 16 parishes in the Diocese of Palm Beach and 14 in the Orlando Diocese will be able to hear the station.

For the first month, the programming — available 24 hours a day and seven days a week — will be downloaded in Melbourne from the satellites of Ave Maria Radio and EWTN Radio, the radio outlet of the Catholic Eternal Word Television Network based in Birmingham, Ala.

Soon, the 5,000-watt station, which can broadcast at least 80 miles in every direction, plans to move to four towers, which will be built in Brevard County on the northern border of Indian River County.

“Eventually much of the programming will be local, including parish events and diocesan events,” said Dick Van Mele, a retired attorney who is chairman of the new station’s advisory board.

The station’s history goes back seven years, organizers say.

“We have been working since 2001 to get a station license from the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission,” said Norman Benz, chairman and treasurer of the station corporation.

Benz, 82, is a retired certified public accountant from Orchard Park, near Buffalo, N.Y. He and his wife, Mary Ann, moved to Florida in 1998 and are parishioners at Ascension Parish in Melbourne.

“There we met Elaine McGavern, who spent years trying to get a Catholic radio station going, but without success,” said Mary Ann Benz. “She had given money to a Catholic radio station in New York state and she wanted to start such a station here in Florida.”

Before 1996, there were only half a dozen Catholic radio stations in the entire United States, said the Benzes. Today, there are more than 150 Catholic stations nationwide.

Van Mele is on the parish pastoral council at St. Sebastian Parish in the northernmost end of the Diocese of Palm Beach in Indian River County. He told the Florida Catholic how he got involved about a year ago in the birth of the station.

“My wife and I had owned a radio station up north in South Bend, Ind. — WAMJ AM,” he said. “We sold it in 1992.”

He and Norman Benz explained that with FCC approval, they finally bought AM radio station WMEL 920 AM at a cost of $650,000, switching it over to WDMC.

“We are looking for new property right now,” he said. “We need 17 acres in Brevard County, where Melbourne is on the Palm Beach County line, to erect four towers.

Norman Benz said that the organizers felt “called to respond to Pope John Paul II’s call for a new evangelization and to his emphasis on the use of the media to that end. The pope said that radio offers the closest equivalent today of what Jesus was able to do with large groups through his preaching.”

“Radio is an intimate medium, which can reach people on the street, in their cars or in their homes,” he said. “Radio may well be the most cost-effective means of reaching large numbers of people who may not want to read or may lack exposure to Catholic publications, but (would) be willing to eavesdrop on Catholic stations or programming.”

Norman Benz said that around 227 applications from Catholic groups are pending with the FCC for noncommercial educational FM licenses.

So far, Divine Mercy Communications has raised $1,000,000 to be on the air, but needs another $500,000 to buy new state-of-the-art equipment to develop a new site with the necessary towers.

The Catholic radio corporation hopes to raise the funds by presenting six-minute talks at Sunday Masses throughout the dioceses, asking parishioners to become “angels” and pledge money to keep WDMC on the air.

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Tune in new Catholic radio: WDMC 920 AM

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