For decades, Biola was best known for its quality radio programming. At one point, Biola owned and operated multiple radio stations and frequencies in southern California, and broadcast the Biola Hour across the United States.
Currently, KBR Biola Radio broadcasts as an online station, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from the Biola University campus in La Mirada, California. Listeners throughout the world can catch the live internet streamhttp://radio.biola.edu/
Radio KTBI hit the airwaves on March 10, 1922 as the first strictly religious broadcasting station to be licensed in the United States.The Biolan 1927, p 92. The 10-watt station increased penetration to 750 watts in 1924 and 1000 watts in 1928. Headquartered on the ninth floor studios at Sixth & Hope in downtown Los Angeles, KTBI took a "high place among stations throughout the country, judged by the quality and variety of the programs broadcast and letters of commendation received." Under the guidance of manager M.E. Carrier, operator J.R. Lytle and program director John A. Glasse, Radio KTBI aired "instructive and inspirational" programs "aimed to conform with the Word of God." Apparently Radio KTBI blessed a wide variety of listeners, from the kids who listened to "Aunt Martha" (Mrs. Gordon E. Hooker) the Biola Children's Hour to the aged shut-ins who listened to the sacred piano music of Gordon E. Hooker and announcer Harry P. Herdman.The Biolan 1928, p 81 The "Bible Institute of the Air" broadcast every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8-8:30 a.m. beginning in 1934 through with penetration from Canada to Mexico, Montana and Ohio and Florida.The Biolan, 1944 & 1946 In 1946, the program was aired on over 40 stations nationwide.
Although such occurrences would be humanly impossible for today's airwaves saturated with frequencies from radiowaves, microwaves, cell phones, satellites, and more; the 1927 edition of The Biolan published an astounding report about how far KTBI broadcasts were actually heard in the "ethereal realm." The report documents unlikely listeners of:
"a trapper living alone on the Wrangel Island off the Alaskan coast"
"all parts of the United States, the Canal Zone, Canada and Hawaii"
"a research party of the National Geographic Society, twenty-eight miles west of Kimberly, South Africa, reported hearing the programs broadcast from this station."page 92
Radio KMTR carried on the work of Biola Radio in the 1940s, as a student body activity overseen by Douglas Anderson, technician, and Jim Vaus, announcer. Then-president of Biola, Dr. Louis Talbot, was a firm advocate of radio as a tool for evangelism and spiritual work.
The "Biola Back-Home Hour" aired every Sunday evening for 45 minutes, and over 200 students loyally supported the program that reached "the ears of thousands."The Biolan, 1940, p 84.