In the first of a new series we look at different aspects of the Christian music industry.

So before taking a further look at the future of Christian radio in this country, it's perhaps necessary to look back at the story so far. Two things have had a detrimental effect on the history of Christian broadcasting in the past: firstly the perception that religion really only appeals to a minority of older people who prefer serious chat to music; and secondly the fact that the C. of E. employs vicars in nearly every diocese and communications officers who usually do radio shows at no cost to the stations, since they are paid by the church.

The belief that religion is only for an older minority has meant Christian shows normally being broadcast at anti-social hours like 6am or 7am on a Sunday, when the likelihood of having any younger listeners unless they're insomniacs is minimal. So even if a broadcaster tried to feature the very best of CCM, he would probably find it totally inappropriate for the time of day and audience, and it would, in effect fall on deaf ears.

The next problem concerning the use of vicars as cheap radio producer/ presenters is that they are often not really all that interested in music, and even if they were, they are often busy men with a parish to look after as well.

Just to balance the argument, I must say I know of three or four of the most outstanding UK Christian broadcasters who are priests or ministers, but whether that is because they have had little competition, or whether it's because they've been given the opportunity to develop their skills over a long period of time, I cannot say. But if you think the picture I paint is depressing so far, then there's worse to come.

The first is something that's been happening for a couple of years now FM/AM splits. You might have noticed the local station you used to listen to in the car on AM is no longer there, but has been replaced by a rather duller station with a different name, and so you have to get an FM radio for the car in order to listen to your favourite music.

Awhile back, the government decided it was a waste for the same station and same programmes to be occupying a number of different frequencies, and so announced that stations would lose their AM frequencies if the programmes were being duplicated on FM. Just in case you're not sure of the difference between AM and FM, AM is the old fashioned 'medium wave' which carries bad quality mono signals, while FM carries the better quality stereo broadcasts.

The BBC were very willing to give away their poorer quality AM frequencies to community and minority interest stations, but the only way local commercial stations could keep both their frequencies was to 'invent' new stations specifically for AM, and keep their pop music stations on FM only. That's why you may have found a totally new sound has replaced your favourite station on AM, although you'll probably find both have the same owners, directors, and maybe even managers. So a flood of new names for AM stations has hit the airwaves: Capital Gold, Brunei Radio, Gem AM, and many others, while the old stations have usually added 'FM' to the end of their names...we even have One FM instead of good old Radio One these days!

Although it took Radio One over twenty years to realise it, most other stations were quicker to suss that in this technological age of CD quality, pop music requires top quality stereo sound, while oldies and chat are fine on old-fashioned scratchy mono. Hence AM stations are usually aimed at a much older audience, and feature either golden oldies or predominantly speech, while FM stations are usually 24 hours music.

The result for religious broadcasting has been that the anti-social 6am and 7am religious shows have been relegated to AM; sometimes being compensated for the reduced audience reach and significantly increased audience age with longer hours in order to feature more speech. Meanwhile FM stations have begun to cut religion entirely from their schedules.

I have concentrated mainly on commercial radio in the story so far because BBC stations hardly bear any relevance to CCM. It is currently stated BBC policy that their local stations should broadcast 80% speech and only 20% music, so it's your guess what tiny share of that 20% CCM can occupy, given the older age group who listen to speech orientated stations.

Of the national BBC stations, although Radio Two does feature an annual gospel music series, having discovered the majority of their audience are now over sixty, they have been asked to tone down the music choice in even those series. Some years back Radio One did have a late Sunday night gospel music show broadcast from New York, but that has long since disappeared, and they now say they will not touch anything to do with religion apart from the odd concert two or three times a year.

A ray of hope seemed to gleam when the government announced there would be three new national commercial radio stations - the hope was they would break Radio One's stranglehold over what music young people listen to. Well, it was decreed that the contracts would go to the highest bidders, but upon realising that the highest bidders would probably all be pop music stations, because after all that's what the majority of people want to listen to, the legislators decided that only one of the three could broadcast pop, while the other two would be limited to classical and speech.

The bill that brought in the prospect of these new national stations The Broadcasting Act' created much heated debate when it passed through Parliament in the Autumn of last year. It was found necessary for instance, to define in law, what pop music actually is after the amusing spectacle of crusty MP's trying to decide on the differences between pop, rock et al. Eventually a definition was settled upon. "'Pop music' includes rock music and other kinds of modern popular music which are characterised by a strong rhythmic element and a reliance on electronic amplification for their performance (whether, or not...the music in question enjoys current popularity as measured by the number of recordings sold)." So now you know.

More worryingly for Christians, the Broadcasting Act opened up all commercial radio to market forces, taking away any obligation to provide any public service, so in effect, radio stations have no requirement to broadcast any religious content now, and the days of even vicars being able to come in and take up a couple of hours on the air for free are coming to an end.