The 700 Club

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The 700 Club
The on-air personalities of The 700 Club
Genre	Religious broadcasting
Starring	Pat Robertson Terry Meeuwsen Lee Webb
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
Production
Location	Virginia Beach, Virginia
Running time	60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	Fox Family Channel (1998-2001) ABC Family (2001-Present)
Original run	April 1966 – Present
Links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

The 700 Club is the flagship news talk show of the Christian Broadcasting Network, airing on cable's ABC Family and in syndication throughout the United States and Canada. In production since 1966, it is currently hosted by Pat Robertson and Terry Meeuwsen, with other on-air personalities being Kristi Watts, Lee Webb, and Gordon Robertson. Previous co-hosts over the years included Ben Kinchlow (1975-88, 1992-96), Sheila Walsh (1988-92), Danuta Rylko Soderman (1983-87), and Lisa Ryan. Tim Robertson served as host for a year from 1987-88 along with Kinchlow and Susan Howard while his father ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in the 1988 campaign.

The show presents news stories from Robertson's religious and political perspective, often relating stories to passages from the Bible which are generally followed by commentary from the hosts. Celebrities and other guests are interviewed about religious views. The news segments frequently emphasize eschatology. The style of news reporting on the show has been criticized by many as unfairly biased, allegedly framing stories in a manner said to reflect Robertson's views.

The 700 Club strongly supports Israel, especially in its disagreements with the Palestinians and the U.N. Among its frequent Jewish guests are Michael Medved and Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who share its conservative Judeo-Christian beliefs.

Religious lifestyle issues are presented with a distinct Pentecostal/charismatic flavor. Robertson is a Southern Baptist and was an ordained minister with that denomination from 1961 until he surrendered his credentials in 1987 to prepare for his failed presidential bid in 1988.

1 History
2 700 Club Asia
3 Controversy
4 External link

[edit] History

In 1961, Robertson bought the license for WTOV, channel 27 in Portsmouth, Virginia. It had gone off the air five years earlier due to poor viewership (the call letters now belonged to WTOV-TV Channel 9 in Steubenville, Ohio, an NBC affiliate). The station returned in October as WYAH, broadcasting twelve hours of Christian programming to the Hampton Roads market each day.

In 1962, the station suffered financially and almost closed. To keep the station on the air, WYAH decided to produce a special telethon edition of the show. For the telethon, Robertson set a goal of 700 members each contributing $10 a month, which was enough to support the station. Robertson referred to these members as the '700 Club' and the name stuck. The telethon was successful and is still held annually.

Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker started on the channel in 1964 as hosts of a children's show, Come On Over, which evolved into a talk show. The couple left WYAH in 1972 to join the Trinity Broadcasting Network where they developed the PTL Club. Some staffers at the station responded by destroying Bakker's sets and puppets before he left.[1] Robertson adopted the talk show format developed by Bakker (though without the puppets) and transformed the 700 Club from a nightly religious themed telethon to a religious talk show.

WYAH 27 was renamed the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), its content similar to a general entertainment station, but with many religious shows, including The 700 Club which aired three times a day. During the 1970s CBN acquired other stations. These stations were sold separately in the 1980s. During this period The 700 Club aired on CBN which became a syndicated cable TV station.

The 700 Club now airs on ABC Family, part of a contractual obligation originally made when Robertson's "Family Channel" (another cable TV station) was sold to Fox Broadcasting Company [2] [3].

International versions of The 700 Club are Club 700 Hoy, broadcast in Latin America, and The 700 Club With Paul and Fiona, in Great Britain. Begun in October 2004, the latter is co-hosted by Paul Jones and Fiona Hendley Jones.

[edit] 700 Club Asia

An Asian edition of the show, The 700 Club Asia, originally premiered in the Philippines in the mid-1990s on GMA 7. It was originally produced and hosted by Pat Robertson's son, Gordon Robertson, and co-hosted by broadcaster Mari Kaimo, and Philippine TV personality Cony Reyes.

In 1998, Reyes took over as host and producer of the show, with Tricia Amper Jimenez as co-host. When Reyes left the show in 2000 for medical reasons, it was retooled as The Club, hosted by Jimenez, Peter Kairuz and Carla Martinez.

In 2001, the show reverted to its old format and moved to ABS-CBN, where it aired on its sister station, Studio 23. Kairuz remained as host with veteran singer Dulce and TV personality Chat Silayan, who later died of cancer.

In 2006, the show moved to GMA's sister station, QTV 11. Kairuz still hosts the show, with Reyes returning to co-host. The show also features Kata Inocencio, Maricel Laxa-Pangilinan and Felichi Pangilinan-Buizon.

The show had been criticized, along with other Filipino church groups and organizations for meddling in political affairs specifically during the 1998 Presidential Election, where it openly showed its support for Lakas UNDP-UCMD candidate Jose De Venecia. In the end, his opponent, PWP candidate Joseph Estrada, came out to win.

[edit] Controversy

The 700 Club has occasionally been the subject of controversy due to political statements made on the show by Pat Robertson (Robertson's page contains a detailed list of controversies that he brought on himself).