Christian radio network in New York state and Pennsylvania
The Family Life Network is a Christian radio network, broadcasting on FM stations across Western and Central New York, as well as northern Pennsylvania, from flagship station WCIK 103.1 Avoca. It is owned and operated by the Family Life Ministries of Bath, New York. FLM is an accredited member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA). Family Life is a listener-supported outreach with about 95% of its operating revenue coming directly from listeners, participants, and supporting churches.[1]
The Family Life Network should not be confused with the unrelated Family Life Communications (also known as Family Life Radio), a different chain of Christian radio stations in the South, Southwest and other regions of the U.S.
History
Family Life Ministries was founded in 1957; 66 years ago (1957). For most of its first 30 years, FLN operated a single radio station at 88.3 FM in Bath. With the release of Docket 80-90 and the massive expansion of rural and suburban FM radio signals in the late 1980s, Family Life rapidly expanded into a network. It began by acquiring WCID in Friendship, New York (now WCOV).[2]
Family Life actively buys and sells stations and translators in its coverage area, a practice that takes advantage of the ministry's status as a non-commercial religious broadcaster. That means it isn't subject to Federal Communications Commission restrictions on the number of stations it can own in one broadcast region. It has largely avoided the AM radio band. When presented with a right of first refusal to buy an AM station in Syracuse, it declined.[3] It quickly spun off two other AM stations in Elmira and Salamanca two months after acquiring them in the wake of Waypoint Media's dissolution.[4]
All of Family Life's stations begin with call signs WCI, WCO, WCG or WCD. According to the company's station list, these abbreviations stand for Where Christ Is, Where Christ Offers, Where Christ Grants and With Christ Discover. Flagship WCIK, for example, represents "Where Christ Is King."
