Alaska Radio Mission KNOM AM-FM
The oldest Catholic radio station in the United States, KNOM is an award-winning, educationally oriented public service radio station in Nome, Alaska. Owned by the Catholic Bishop of Northern Alaska, KNOM serves small, isolated Eskimo and Indian villages in Western Alaska.The radio station is noncommercial, supported entirely by individual donations, and is partly staffed by full-time volunteers. Programming is a blend of inspiration, news, music, education and companionship.
There are not enough priests, sisters and lay volunteers to serve the religious needs of the dozens of remote Eskimo and Indian villages scattered throughout vast western Alaska. Further, the area is rife with poverty, and social ills of every kind. KNOM is on the air to address those needs, broadcasting inspirational messages, news, music, information and companionship to thousands of bush Alaskans.
KNOM has full-time listeners throughout Alaska's Seward Penninsula, around Norton Sound, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, and deep into the Russian Far East. It can be heard easily from the Aleutian Islands to the Arctic coast.
The station is extremely popular. Although most listeners are able to hear at least one other station, a 2001 audience measurement survey by Eastlan and Associates indicated that between 79% and 100% of adult villagers listen to KNOM every day.
For its public service, KNOM has won an extraordinary number of state and national awards. Among them, the National Association of Broadcasters' Marconi Religious Station of the Year Award in 1992 and 2003, NAB's Crystal Award for Excellence in Local Achievement in 1987, 2000, 2003, and 2005, and the national Gabriel Radio Station of the Year Award in 1979, 1984, 1987, and 1996-2005.
Learn more about KNOM at their official web site: http://knom.org/