ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 29, 1996 TAG: 9609270022
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: THE BACK PEW
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
Running a television station is no small feat. It is technically complicated. It is an extremely competitive business. And it is incredibly expensive.
For the men and women who operate and staff Christian television stations, all those factors are complicated by - yet usually secondary to - a mission to spread the Gospel via one of the most pervasive communications media yet created.
Sometimes it is incredibly lucrative, as well. Witness Pat Robertson and family, who have made millions starting with a little TV station in Tidewater Virginia that interspersed religious programming - including "The 700 Club" - with a mix of old "family-oriented" reruns.
That beginning grew to a massive cable empire that includes what is now the Family Channel, which - though now separate from Robertson's religious organization - nevertheless traces its roots to that single TV station years ago.
That, however, was atypical of the growth of such stations.
More typical, probably, is Roanoke's WEFC (Channel 38).
Sonshine Television actually began broadcasting on a Roanoke cable channel in 1977. But it wasn't until 1986 that Channel 38 actually went on the air, available to everyone with a television in the Roanoke region.
For 10 years now, Roanoke's Christian television station has been steadily airing a variety of religious programs, including the locally produced "Ken Wright and Friends" show, its cornerstone. In that program, station owner and manager Ken Wright - also the pastor of Evangel Foursquare Church - interviews religious people from the region, including pastors, musicians and singers, evangelists, lay people, and once even a certain newspaper columnist who writes from "The Back Pew."
While Wright and his staff have not built a Robertson-like empire from a single UHF television station, they do seem to have made an impact in the region.
Two years ago, a Roanoke Valley poll commissioned by this newspaper and conducted by Roanoke College asked people several questions about religious beliefs and practices. Among them was a query about their frequency of watching religious television.
Although 41 percent said "never," fully 38 percent said they watched at least once a month, and another 20 percent said they watched, but less frequently than that.
Not all of those viewers were necessarily watching WEFC. There are religious programs occasionally shown on other stations, including some cable outlets. But it seems likely that many of those people who say they watch religious TV are spending at least some of the time with their attention focused on WEFC.
Yet, the station still rarely shows up in the local television ratings because its audience is so small.
And that makes life interesting, at least, for the station's supporters.
Unlike some stations with a religious format, WEFC is licensed as a commercial station, meaning it can sell advertising to help offset the costs of production. But in reality, commercial sales have never come close to providing all the financial support the station needs.
It has relied on two other sources of income.
First, it sells blocks of time to people who want their programs to air in this market, primarily ministries from around the country. That's how you see folks such as Kenneth Hagee and Jimmy Swaggart and Charles Stanley. In addition to the religious programming, it recently started selling its 10-10:30 p.m. slot to WDBJ (Channel 7) for the market's first prime-time newscast.
Second, the station solicits direct financial support from its viewers. Wright occasionally does that in his program, but the station primarily uses the telethon format to request donations.
Relying on viewer contributions can be a tough way to go. Just ask Jerry Falwell. His ministry lost tens of millions of dollars in the late 1980s in the wake of the "televangelism" scandals involving the Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.
Though most were not operating on that financial scale, many small independent television stations were similarly affected by the drop in giving that accompanied people's feelings that their trust had been violated by a few TV preachers.
The tainted brush tarred the entire spectrum of broadcast religion, even those like WEFC that were not implicated in those controversies at all.
That's not to say WEFC has been entirely free of controversy. The station had to fight to get a television tower erected in the first place, and raised the ire of opponents of those plans. Wright's church has been criticized by at least a few of its neighbors for being a poor landlord and running over the "little guys" next door in a bid to buy up land for expansion.
Nevertheless, in combination, there has been enough support to keep the station operating for a decade now, and the folks at WEFC this week sponsored a banquet to celebrate its birthday and to honor those who have contributed to its success.
It seems fitting to have done so. No matter what its ratings numbers might be, or whether every program is to the taste of every potential viewer, WEFC has added a dimension to the television medium that thousands of folks in the region want.
Happy anniversary.
LENGTH: Medium: 97 linesby CNB