The following comes from a Jan. 9 story in the Orange County Register.

Catholics will start getting spiritual replenishment over the airwaves when the Orange County diocese flips the switch on its own radio station at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday [Jan. 13]….

Initially, most of the content for KCEO will be from Immaculate Heart Radio, a Catholic network in the western U.S., with the diocese producing an hour of original broadcasting a week from the Christ Cathedral campus in Garden Grove and quickly expanding upon that….

Local broadcasts will come out of a new, $40,000 studio. In the last week, workers furiously installed soundboards, microphones and other broadcasting gadgets for the premiere of the “Orange County Catholic Radio” show. The diocese received a $180,000 donation from the Orange County Catholic Foundation to help cover the costs of producing its own shows….

But running the station alone would have proved difficult for the diocese. Immaculate Heart Radio already had a station in place, removing start-up costs – moving into Orange County is really an expansion, as 1000 AM goes from 5,000 to 10,000 watts to extend its reach….

Immaculate Heart has 33 stations over six western states, reaching a potential audience of 50 million people, and $15 million in net assets, according to its 2013 tax filing.

It has a transponder in Vista and had been looking to expand into Orange County when the partnership quietly began 18 months ago; it has similar agreements with other dioceses, including the one serving San Diego and Imperial counties.

Immaculate Heart paid the bulk of the approximately $400,000 to upgrade its San Diego County transponder and reconfigure one of its four radio towers so it could boost the 1000 AM signal….

For now, it will only have one original show, which will be taped on Tuesdays and air at 11 a.m. Thursdays. It will, essentially, be a Catholic news program. This week, Orange County Catholic Radio will feature Bishop Vann and Sherman as guests and phone interviews.

The program will be hosted by Patrick Mott, the editor of Orange County’s Catholic newspaper. Future shows will discuss major Catholic issues, such as speeches and sermons from the pope or updates on Christ Cathedral’s renovations….

Eventually, the diocese intends to make Thursday’s broadcast live so it can take listeners’ calls. By March, it wants to launch a This American Life-style storytelling program and soon thereafter a one-hour program when callers ask a local priest questions….

The diocese’s state-of-the-art studio is on the eighth floor of the 13-story Tower of Hope, the 1968 Richard Neutra-designed behemoth that recently underwent a $6.1 million refurbishment, part of the $113 million or so earmarked to upgrade the 34-acre campus formerly known as Crystal Cathedral….

To read the original story, click here.