For the first time in its 80-year history, Vatican Radio is broadcasting commercial messages.
The move towards accepting paid advertising is related to the Vatican's $22 million deficit last year.
Sean-Patrick Lovett, director of Vatican Radio's English and Italian sections, said of Vatican radio:
It's like having an 80-year-old child
living at home all this time, and you say, 'Darling, we still love you,
you can go on living here, we're not going to kick you out, but it
would be nice if you would contribute to paying the phone bill, the gas
bill or something.
According to the LA Times:
The first commercial aired July 6. Only ads by Enel will be broadcast during a three-month trial period, and even then, the energy giant's spots interrupt Vatican Radio's regular "gavel-to-gavel coverage of the pope," as Lovett describes it, only four or five times a day.