I realize that statement is very silly, since Lino is 48 39 years old. But what if Lino was trying to do a Catholic radio show 20 years ago? If he tried this same format in 1991, what would it look and sound like?
I think it would be vastly different. Without the existence of satellite radio (the Sirius and XM companies were formed in the early 90s, but didn't launch service until a decade later), Lino's show would be limited to syndication among different radio networks. And since religious radio is supported by donations instead of subscriber fees, it's safe to say that the show would sound more like Lino at Large for three hours (not that that is a bad thing) than The Catholic Guy show.
I think the show would be a lot more phone-call driven, since things like Facebook fan pages and blogs discussing the show were pretty much non-existent in 1991. However, as a few people in the early 90s could post to Bulletin Board Services, it's possible that there could have been small Lino communities scattered throughout the country.
Imagine if Lino actually read letters mailed to him on the air. As far as I can remember, there haven't been any physical letters read on the show (although that would be a great idea). Imagining the show, however, with all these restrictions makes me happy that we have the technology that we do.
Imagining a constrained Lino at the mercy of little old ladies who donate to their radio stations makes me very happy that Sirius XM has allowed The Catholic Channel to be on the air. I am very happy that Lino can do a show the way God wants him to do the show instead of worrying about a bunch of moustaches concerned about meeting the bottom line and canning Lino because Pastor Hobard's Hour of Silence brings in more donations.
Thank God for technology. And Lino Rulli
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Photo by Paul Grant
Well, Sonny, pull up a chair and I'll tell ya how it was done in the nineties, in the olden days of Catholic Radio.
There was a wealthy Dutchman who gave Mother Angelica of EWTN a very large sum of money to build a short-wave radio station high on a mountain in St Clair County, Alabama. Back at that time, and still now today, I suppose, many evangelicals had short-wave radio stations. WEWN has all state of the art radio equipment.
WEWN carried lots of EWTN programming, including Mother's Live Show on Tuesday and Wednesday. The first call-in show just for radio was called LiveWire with a toll free number, and people called from all over the world.
I was an early adopter of short-wave radio, but it didn't take off in the United States. It was wonderful when Sirius carried EWTN Radio for those who didn't have local radio. Lino came in between that, on Relevant Radio. He used to do spots on Life on the Rock. It is fantastic that Sirius saw the need for a lifestyle Catholic radio station, and there's lots of times the short-wave signal didn't cover my area because I live too close.
So, all those years ago, Lino could have been on short-wave!
You see the problems Lino has with being at least ten years ahead of Catholic media now. Send him back twenty years, you say, and make him be thirty years ahead of his time?
He looks like a frustrated visionary now, trying to get things done in Catholic media that are already standard in secular media (never mind the cutting edge stuff). Send him back to 1991 and he would find it difficult to get secular media to catch up with him. Catholic media wouldn't have come within a hundred miles of him in 1991.