Is a radio station that broadcasts Christian music a house of worship? The Ohio Supreme Court will soon weigh in on that question.
A case facing the Ohio Supreme Court could determine whether WCVO must pay thousands of dollars in real-estate taxes, should the justices determine that the Gahanna-based station is no longer a nonprofit organization.
The case involves the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals’ ruling in 2008 to deny the station’s property-tax exemption.
In that ruling, the tax commissioner found that WCVO’s property is used exclusively as a radio station and not for public worship.
In his brief, WCVO’s attorney, Brian Zets, argued that “Christian radio is public worship” and that the station’s music “encourages a vertical relationship to God and serves as a ministry to 60 percent of its 55,000 daily listeners.”
Zets also argued that on-air advertising was “no different than a traditional church selling advertising space in the weekly bulletin.”
While WCVO’s property-tax exemption is in dispute, FCC records show that the station holds a commercial license. Under FCC rules, stations owned by nonprofit entities are known as “noncommercial educational” stations, or NCE stations. Because of First Amendment considerations, the FCC does not speak at all to the religious or public-worship aspects of the NCE status of a radio-station licensee.