Running time
History[edit]
On October 2, 1930, the Lutheran Laymen's League began the weekly national broadcast of The Lutheran Hour with Walter A. Maier as the first speaker.[1] Initially, the program was on 32 stations of the CBS network.[4] Maier continued as the program's well-known speaker for the next twenty years (1930–1950). In 1940, The Lutheran Hour began a Spanish-language broadcast by Dr. Andrew Melendez. Beginning in 1955, Oswald Hoffmann became speaker for the next thirty-three years (1955–1988), heard on 1,200 stations in the U.S. and in thirty other nations.[3] In 1992, the Lutheran Laymen's League selected "Lutheran Hour Ministries" as the overall identity for its media outreach programs. By 2012, The Lutheran Hour was heard on 800 stations in the U.S. and on the American Forces Network, consisting of organ and choral music preceding the speaker's sermonette and a recitation of the Lord's Prayer.[5]