A pioneer of international Christian broadcasting, Douglas Malton, died this week of heart failure, aged 82, at his Hampshire home. He was co-founder of Feba, Britain’s first missionary radio station. To download a PDF of this press release, click: PRESS RELEASE.
International religious broadcasting veteran Douglas Malton leaves ‘lasting legacy’ 
Feba grew from his spare bedroom in Surrey – to a global network reaching millions in places that now regularly hit the headlines, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. A businessman taken with the vision of radio, Malton had set out to ’give people the message of life at the speed of light’.
Combining FM transmissions with short wave and the internet, the now Sussex-based Feba developed from a traditional missionary approach to a more holistic media organisation, serving the spiritual and practical needs of communities. Programming gives ‘a real voice’ to marginalised people, information to difficult locations and ‘life-changing hope’ to all listeners.
It’s a story of unlikely beginnings. In the 50s, Malton was an enthusiast without a BBC pedigree. In his spare time he recorded interviews and flight commentary at the Farnborough Air Show for a friend working at a Christian radio station in the Philippines. Feba started in 1959 as a support group for the Manila-based Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC).
It was over lunch in a Sunbury restaurant overlooking the Thames that Malton and colleague John Wheatley started planning their own fully-fledged broadcasting base. ‘We started out with just £400 in the bank,’ Malton recalled in his local diocesan newspaper, the Pompey Chimes.
Ineffective in broadcasting from Manila to India, FEBC asked for help in locating another site closer to listeners. The Seychelles, then a British crown colony, appeared on the horizon as a likely site. Malton’s and Wheatley’s dream came true. Funded by voluntary donations, a studio complex was built, staff recruited, and Feba Radio started broadcasting in May 1970 to India.
The following year, broadcasts to the Middle East started, subsequently spreading to other regions. Feba found a niche encouraging communities in restricted countries. ‘Many write and say they are secret believers,’ is how Malton once described some of the feedback received.
He was Feba’s chairman until 1996, when he became life president. He also served on the boards of other Christian organisations, including relief agency Tearfund. Malton’s work was praised in the radio specialist’s chronicle, History Of International Broadcasting (2000), as ‘an achievement that would be a credit even to a government-funded international broadcaster’. Malton leaves a widow Joan, two grown-up children and three grandchildren.
‘A gracious, generous and godly man, Douglas’ lasting legacy will be the impact Feba has had on individuals in Africa, Asia and the Middle East,’ said current chairman John Rogers.
A thanksgiving service will be held at 2.00pm on Tuesday 12 April at All Saints Church, East Meon, and Joan, Joanna and Tim will warmly welcome any of you who are able to be there. If you are planning to attend it would be helpful if you could just call or email Feba reception so that we can give the church an expectation of numbers. The family request no flowers please, instead send any gifts to Feba.