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COURTESY SALEM COMMUNICATIONS CORP  
Stuart Epperson
A High-Fidelity Messenger: Long before Rush Limbaugh proved that radio listeners would flock to unapologetically opinionated chat, 10-year-old Stuart Epperson was reading Bible verses from a radio station his brother built in their family's Virginia farmhouse. By age 36, Epperson had bought an AM station in Roanoke, Va., that would be the beginning of a religious and political broadcasting powerhouse. Salem Communications, the company Epperson, now 69, later founded with his brother-in-law Edward Atsinger, owns 104 radio stations in 24 of the top 25 U.S. markets and reaches an estimated 5 million listeners a week. The broadcaster's stations offer Christian music and teaching, as well as conservative talk shows that engage listeners not just to consider hot-button issues like abortion and stem-cell research but also to weigh in with letter-writing campaigns and phone calls to politicians.
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Text David Van Biema, Cathy Booth-Thomas/Dallas, Massimo Calabresi and John F. Dickerson/Washington
John Cloud and Rebecca Winters/New York, and Sonja Steptoe/Los Angeles.

With reporting by Amanda Bower/New York, Rita Healey/Denver, Sean Scully/Philadelphia and Elaine Shannon/Washington

FROM THE FEBRUARY 7, 2005 ISSUE OF TIME MAGAZINE; POSTED SUNDAY, JANUARY 30, 2005

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Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

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