Christian Broadcasting Network

The Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN, is a fundamentalist Christian television broadcasting network in the United States. Its headquarters and main studios are in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Background

CBN was founded by televangelist Pat Robertson in 1961 using a religious variety program format that has been successfully used in religious broadcasting ever since. One of the mainstays of the network is The 700 Club, the longest-running program in the variety format. The network's journalistic branch, CBN News, provides news updates to The 700 Club and produces religious news programs such as CBN NewsWatch and Christian World News, and also airs a special hour of prime time election coverage hosted by Robertson during presidential and mid-term elections in the United States, seen on ABC Family. The hour long talk-show 700 Club Interactive is also seen on ABC Family. CBN also operates online channels on its website, such as the CBN News Channel.^[1]

CBN Asia manages Operation Blessing International Relief and Development Corporation (OBI), an international relief and missionary effort, and has international programming, producing local programs including Solusi in Indonesia and From Heart to Heart in Thailand; CBN India produces five weekly series. There are versions of The 700 Club aimed at Latin American (Club 700 Hoy) and British audiences (The 700 Club With Paul and Fiona) [1]. CBN has broadcast programs in over 70 languages.

On April 29, 1977, CBN launched a cable network, CBN Satellite Service. It was later revamped with a mix of both religious and secular programming, and renamed CBN Cable Network. CBN Cable Network was eventually renamed The Family Channel, which was later sold under that name to Fox and was then known as the Fox Family Channel. Fox later sold it to Disney, which renamed it ABC Family. The terms of the original sale stipulated that The 700 Club and another show would continue to be shown on the Family Channel and that the word "Family" would remain in the channel's name in perpetuity.

CBN is now a production company for The 700 Club, and the other syndicated shows CBN NewsWatch, Christian World News, 700 Club Interactive, and One Cubed. CBN and Regent University jointly produced the film First Landing. [2] The current news director is Rob Allman.

Some of CBN's programs are also aired on Sky Angel, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Cornerstone Television, FamilyNet, LeSEA Broadcasting and Middle East Television (which was founded and owned by CBN, until sold in the early 2000s to LeSEA), all Evangelical Christian networks. Those secular commercial stations which continue to air The 700 Club in syndication (along with ABC Family) air CBN's yearly telethon in the last week of January.

Former broadcast stations

At one time, CBN owned a number of radio and television stations, including the following:

• WYAH-TV (channel 27) in Portsmouth, Virginia was CBN's first station and the group's flagship outlet, purchased by Robertson in 1960. WYAH began operations under CBN ownership in October 1961 and was owned by CBN until 1989. It is currently WGNT, affiliated with the CW Television Network and owned by Local TV, who also owns CBS affiliate WTKR in the same market.

• WHAE-TV (channel 46) in Atlanta, Georgia was CBN's second television station, launched by the ministry in June 1971. CBN changed the station's call letters to WANX-TV in 1977, and sold the outlet in 1984 to the Tribune Company, who renamed the station WGNX. Today it operates as WGCL-TV, a CBS affiliate owned by the Meredith Corporation.

• In January 1973 CBN purchased KBFI-TV (channel 33) in Dallas, Texas and changed its calls to KXTX-TV. Four months later, a station license trade resulted in CBN moving KXTX-TV to channel 39. KXTX was CBN's last station property when it was sold to LIN Broadcasting in 2000. Currently KXTX is owned by NBC Universal and is an affiliate of the co-owned Spanish-language network Telemundo.

• WXNE-TV (channel 25) in Boston was CBN's fourth station, commencing operations in October 1977. CBN sold WXNE to the News Corporation in January 1987 and it was converted into WFXT, an owned-and-operated station of the Fox Broadcasting Company.

• CBN planned to build a station on channel 63 in Richmond, Virginia, with the call sign WRNX. The station never made it to air under CBN ownership, as its construction permit was sold in 1983 to a Christian broadcaster and signed on that year. That station was eventually sold and in 1986 became WVRN with a secular schedule. The station itself operated for only five years.

• CBN operated WXRI (now WMOV-FM), a Christian-formatted FM radio station in Norfolk, Virginia, from 1962 until 1989.

• From 1969 to 1982 CBN also owned a simulcast network of five FM radio stations in upstate New York originally set up in 1948 by a farming cooperative as the Rural Radio Network, known as CBN Northeast. These stations included WBIV in Wethersfield, New York, WEIV in Ithaca, New York, WJIV in Cherry Valley, New York, WMIV in South Bristol, New York, and WOIV in DeRuyter, New York. This station group was split up following CBN's sale of the licenses to separate owners.

Programs

• The 700 Club is a news/magazine television program transmitted daily since 1966—one of the longest runs of any program—with Pat Robertson, Terry Meeuwsen, and Gordon Robertson. Broadcasts information and interviews to an average daily audience of one million viewers, both on cable and through syndication.
• CBN NewsWatch is produced by CBN News, is a half-hour daily news program reporting national and international news from a conservative, Christian perspective. Broadcast nationally on several Christian cable and satellite outlets.
• Christian World News is a half-hour weekly conservative news program, produced by CBN News. Broadcast nationally on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
• Club 700 Hoy is a half hour Spanish-language weekly television program broadcast throughout Latin America, and in the United States on the US Hispanic network, Azteca America. Produced in a magazine style format. It is a morning show about popular opinion on current issues, and claims to provide answers to life's problems. It presents interviews, informative features, and reality stories about people, places, and music.
• One Cubed USA and One Cubed International are programs about youth culture, action sports, and music videos. It claims a mission statement "to reach this generation to express the unconditional love and salvation that God freely offered to everyone in this world. In everything that is One Cubed, we want to bring glory to God, never compromising and never settling, and always striving to be used by Him to the best of our abilities".

Personalities

• Pat Robertson, co-host of The 700 Club.
• Terry Meeuwsen, co-host of The 700 Club.
• Gordon Robertson, co-host of The 700 Club and The 700 Club Interactive.
• Kristi Watts, co-host of The 700 Club.
• Lee Webb, anchor of The 700 Club and CBN NewsWatch.
• Wendy Griffith, co-anchor of CBN NewsWatch and Christian World News, and fill-in anchor of The 700 Club.
• George Thomas, co-anchor of Christian World News and CBN News foreign correspondent.
• David Brody, CBN News White House correspondent and host of The Brody File.
• Jennifer Wishon, CBN News Capitol Hill correspondent.
• Dale Hurd, CBN News foreign correspondent.
• Lorie Johnson, CBN News medical correspondent.
• Erick Stakelbeck, CBN News terrorism analyst.
• Heather Sells, CBN News Channel anchor and reporter.
• Mark Martin, CBN News Channel anchor and reporter.
• Charlene Israel, CBN News Channel anchor and reporter.
• Efrem Graham, CBN News Channel anchor and reporter.
• John Waage, CBN News political director.
• Gary Lane, CBN News senior international reporter.
• Chuck Holton, CBN News Military Correspondent.

See also

• TBN

References

External links

• Official website
• CBN India—CBN's outreach in India
• CBN Asia's (Philippines) Official Homepage
• CBN Latin America's Official Homepage - In Spanish
• CBN Europe's Official Homepage
• CBN Indonesia's Official Homepage - In Indonesian
• CBN Hong Kong's Official Homepage - In Chinese