Paul E. Freed founded Trans World Radio in 1952 in Tangiers, Morocco. By 1999 Trans World Radio was broadcasting in 150 languages from 12 locations in the world. Its gospel message is broadcast more than 1,400 hours each week and reaches listeners on three continents.

Freed, the son of missionaries, was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1918. As a young boy, his family moved to the Middle East, where his parents served with the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church. Freed's early education was sporadic; he attended English and German school in Jerusalem, was home schooled, and worked with tutors. When his parents were home on furlough, he attended Wheaton Academy in Illinois. From the Academy, he matriculated at Wheaton College, where he earned his bachelor's degree. After graduating from Wheaton College, Freed attended Nyack Bible College and graduated from its missions program. Shortly after his marriage to Betty Jane Seawell in 1945, Freed left his employment as pastor of a small church in Greenville, South Carolina. Torrey Johnson, founder of the Youth for Christ movement, recruited Freed as the director of the Greensboro, North Carolina, program.

In 1948 Johnson sent Freed to the Youth for Christ conference in Switzerland. Despite protestations from Freed, Johnson insisted it was God's calling for him. While in Switzerland, Freed was convinced there was a need to transmit the message of God to the evangelical Protestant youth of Franco's Spain. Following a trip to Spain, Freed laid the foundation for a radio organization to bring the gospel message to the people of Spain. The Spanish government refused to sanction such work. Frustrated by his experience, Freed returned to the United States to find a way to fulfill his mission of evangelical radio for the people of Spain.

Origins of Trans World Radio

In February 1952 Freed founded International Evangelism (later to be known as Trans World Radio) in the international city of Tangiers, Morocco. Freed acquired a small piece of land directly across the narrow Strait of Gibraltar from Spain. By 1954, at 61 years of age, Freed's father, Ralph Freed, accepted a new ministry to become director of the radio station in Tangiers. Dr. Ralph Freed transmitted the first Christian message from Tangiers, Morocco, on a 2,500-watt transmitter. Working together, by 1956 the Freeds built the Voice of Tangiers into an organization that broadcast the gospel message to 40 countries in over 20 languages. In 1959, when Morocco became a politically independent nation, government officials for the new regime ordered all radio stations to become nationalized. Freed was forced to move his station. Freed was worried that the 80 million listeners of the Voice of Tangiers would be lost, because there were no other full-time gospel radio stations on the air. The tiny Riviera country of Monaco welcomed Trans World Radio and its gospel message. Freed and Trans World Radio began broadcasting from a transmitter originally built during World War II by the Germans for propaganda purposes.

By 1960 Freed had completed a dissertation at the New York University School of Education. He combined international relations, mass communication, and religious education in preparation for his goal to expand Trans World Radio's broadcast of the gospel message to other areas of Europe. Freed believed that millions of people around the world would be receptive to the gospel message if they could hear it. European radio was not receptive to gospel programs or preachers. Most radio in Europe was controlled by the government, and the few countries that allowed preaching charged extremely high rates for even their lowest-rated times. Other countries that closed their borders to missionaries and the gospel message were also targeted by Freed for radio broadcasts.

The station in Monte Carlo broadcast with 100,000 watts. Freed targeted Spain, Portugal, the British Isles, Scandinavia, the then the Soviet Union, Central Europe, Southern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa as the primary areas to be reached from Monte Carlo. The first programs aired by Trans World Radio were broadcast in 24 languages. The staff in Monte Carlo received 18,000 letters the first year offering support for their programming efforts. Trans World Radio continued to grow, setting up branch offices in different areas of Europe. Their ministry spread across Europe and into the Middle East.

In August 1964 Trans World Radio added a transmitting station in Bonaire Island, part of the Netherlands Antilles. Through this facility, Trans World Radio programmed 70 hours a week of gospel messages to the Caribbean and the northern part of South America. By 1980 Trans World Radio had established new transmitting stations in Swaziland to reach sub-Saharan Africa and Pakistan, in Cyprus to reach people in 21 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and in Guam (broadcasting in 35 languages) to reach listeners in Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Asian Pacific area. In the 1980s Trans World Radio established operations in Uruguay in partnership with "Radio Rural" to carry its gospel message to listeners in Uruguay and northern Argentina.

As Trans World Radio moved into the 1990s, Freed continued to work to expand listenership. Stations were added in Albania, Russia, Johannesburg, and Poland. By 2000 Trans World Radio broadcast 1,400 hours of gospel programs from 12 locations around the world. These programs were broadcast in 150 languages to an estimated 2 billion people. Each year, Trans World Radio receives over 1.4 million letters from listeners in 160 countries. Trans World Radio initially transmitted on AM at 800 kilohertz and has since added shortwave transmissions to reach more listeners. Shortly after Freed's death on 1 December 1996, he was inducted into the National Religious Broadcaster's Hall of Fame.