Radio Broadcasts
TVOM Radio Broadcasts
라디오 방송
YEAR-END SUMMARY
We give the Lord thanks for a wonderful year of broadcasting the gospel into North Korea! Below are a few important milestones and highlights from 2024.
- 1,460 short-wave broadcasts into North Korea (365 days x 4 daily broadcasts)
- 365 (daily) monitoring/quick response counter measure reports to counteract jamming
- 54% of autumn broadcasts were clearly heard without any jamming
- 52 updates to our content for our discipleship partners through secure means
- 11% of winter broadcasts were substantially jammed (89% of broadcasts were heard without substantial jamming)
In addition to this, we were encouraged by the many reception reports from around the world of people who heard the clear/strong signal of our NK shortwave stations. And we were thrilled to meet a new NK defector, in December of 2024, who heard our shortwave station (before he came to Korea) and remembered the exact content that he had listened too!
NK defectors and South Korean volunteers record our shortwave radio broadcasts.
RECEPTION REPORTS
Throughout the course of 2024, we received reception reports from Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, the United States and Uzbekistan. Each and every report that we received was important in that it independently verified the signal quality of each of our broadcasts.
We continued monitoring the radio signals ourselves, and our reports are even better than those we receive from around the world. That’s because, we monitor the radio signals as close to the NK border as we can get! We are able to detect any intereference or jamming from the NK government in real-time.
As a result of our broadcast strategy, the audience could reliably hear the program in full across the broadcast footprint for every day of the reporting period.
The dependably good sound quality of our audio production is also consistently helpful in broadcasting reliably audible programming across North Korea and its neighboring provinces – particularly with NK’s developing capabilities.
If the audio quality is not good, it makes it easier to jam the broadcasts. Jamming methods vary, but often the government will add another layer of sound, on top of the original broadcast. If the quality of the original broadcast isn’t good, then it is even easier to mask/block the sound.
Please Join with us in Prayer for the Following Requests:
아래 기도 제목으로 함께 기도해주세요.
- Pray for the NKs we met that listened to Christian radio inside of NK. In 2024, we met several NKs who listened to Christian shortwave radio in North Korean, China and Russia. Pray that the seed of the gospel, which was planted by radio, would germinate and result in them placing their faith in Jesus Christ.
- Pray for our 2025 NK radio broadcasts. Our programs continue to be heavily targeted by the NK government. Pray that our broadcasts can be clearly received by North Koreans inside of North Korea.
FAQ
자주 묻는 질문
What's new in NK radio ministry?
We’ve recently been updating the way in which we broadcast into NK. We learned that TV news broadcasting in NK has more of the sound of our old style broadcast but radio broadcasting in NK is using warmer personal voices these days. Our broadcast is pioneering the use of a combined NK/SK announcing corps, with NKs and SKs interacting about the Bible and the Christian faith in friendly voices. It’s very revolutionary and we think it will attract a wider range of listeners. We are also excited to be broadcasting between program segments the new NK hymns that were recorded as part of last year’s Hymnal Project. These songs were recorded in the traditional NK style and sung by former members of art performance teams in North Korea. We expect that their traditional voices will touch North Koreans’ hearts through the North Korean classical style hymns.
Listen to God is the Best in North Korean!
Listen to Amazing Grace in North Korean!
Listen to As The Deerin North Korean!
Listen to God Is So Good in North Korean!
What do we broadcast into North Korea?
Our radio broadcasts are produced by our North Korean Underground University students. In the broadcasts the students share Scripture—both in its pure form and in the North Korean-style dramas which hold such interest for our audience. They read from books on Christian persecution to help underground believers there understand why they face the challenges they do and how to bear up under them.
There are also discipleship training segments, songs (often rewritten versions of North Korean “hymns” originally designed to praise Kim Il Sung), and—for the first time this year—“live” segments where our announcers reflect on their own experiences and explain what are often the very new and foreign words and concepts of Scripture.
How many North Koreans listen to the broadcast?
There are an estimated 2 million North Koreans who tune into their illegal radios each evening.
Does the North Korean government try to block our broadcasts?
Our broadcast is the regular target of ultimately unsuccessful blocking attempts of the North Korean government. The blocking attempts are the best indicators we have of how threatening the NK regime considers our broadcast to be. One of the ways that we overcome the blocking is through our active team of engineers who do whatever it takes on a nightly basis to enable the broadcast to be heard.
It is likely that our broadcast is threatening to NK not only because it is Christian but also because it is voiced by North Koreans. Many broadcasts use South Korean voices. Not only does this make the broadcast harder for North Koreans to understand, but the regime likely considers South Korean voices of evangelism to be less threatening than North Korean voices of evangelism.
Do you have any testimonies of North Koreans listening to the radio?
JKS, a North Korean defector, shared her experience of listening to the radio while she was in North Korea, she came to South Korea in 2006. She said that she listened to the radio for 3 months with her friends just before she left the North. She said that it was quite easy to receive the gospel radio programs and other radio programs from South Korea because she lived in a border area. Here is the story of JKS’ experience of listening to the radio in North Korea:
One night, we closed the door and listened to the radio under the blanket. At the moment that I listened to the radio from South Korea, it was not only amazing but also tears pricked my eyes because of our nation’s state of division.From that point on, I kept listening to radio broadcasts from South Korea with my father. We realized that Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un and their followers are untruthful. I sometimes got furious with them.Later, after I arrived in South Korea, when I talked with my home folks, there were some people who also listened to South Korean radio broadcasts in North Korea. They said that they covered themselves with blankets and agreed that the best time for listening to the radio was from 10 pm to 2:30 am.