Vision
To communicate the message of Jesus to the Australian community through quality media products.
Background
Over the past ten years the growth and development of Christian radio stations around Australia has been enormous. These stations are fast becoming main stream in the large Australian metropolitan cities and gaining wide acceptance. Christian radio together with media via pay TV channels is perhaps one of the most extensive growth areas of Christian ministry in Australia. All capital cities now have a significant Christian radio station.
These stations seek to be evangelistic in their approach and strive to do this in several different ways. One of the approaches they use is to play Christian thought provokers and short devotional spots at either a regular time or randomly. These spots bring the Christian message to the audience in ways that connect their world and situation to the message of Jesus.
With the growth of these stations there has not necessarily been a corresponding growth in the “products” that they air on a weekly basis to meet their audience and ministry needs. This has been true of the Christian thought provokers which are often one minute spots. There have been a very limited number of these spots available and they have become very dated. New material is needed. One station manager stated that to start playing radio spots they would need 100 recorded and another 100 on the way. In other words these stations need a large number of spots before they start playing individual spots regularly.
Just over three years ago Karl Faase was approached by Family FM (96.5) in Brisbane to record one minute radio spots for regular use on their station. Family FM had decided to proactively pursue new spots and Karl Faase was asked to help provide these. Family FM were also making the spots available to other Christian stations around Australia via a website. This site was funded by a short term grant and many stations took up the opportunity while this was available. An arrangement was made with Heart 103.2 in Sydney to provide the studio time and personnel to record these spots which has been carried out over the past several years. There are now over 380 spots recorded and these are made available to stations at no cost.
Over this time the number of stations who use these spots has grown and they include 103.2 in Sydney (who feature these spots at 8.30am and pm Monday to Friday) as well as stations in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Wollongong, Newcastle and many regional areas. Unfortunately, due to the way the spots were distributed there is no way of knowing which stations have which spots and the growth areas for further development for the distribution is unclear.
This collection of 380 spots provides a potential resource for evangelism for Christian radio stations both in Australia and in other English speaking stations around the world.
Olive Tree Media has been developed to make these radio spots as well as other media resources available and to be a point of distribution of quality Christian media resources. Olive Tree Media has been made possible by a generous grant from the Kingsley Foundation.
Organisation
Olive Tree Media is registered as an Incorporated Association and is administered through a non profit organisation governed by a small board, all financial accounts are audited and made available to funders and interested parties.