Robertson Cuts TV Staff by 500, Appeals for Funds

Evangelist Pat Robertson, saying the PTL scandal and Oral Roberts’ life-or-death bid for money “hit the evangelical world like a bombshell,” laid off 500 “godly” workers at his religious television network today and issued an emergency appeal for funds.

Robertson, speaking on Christian Broadcasting Network’s “The 700 Club,” estimated that negative publicity surrounding the Jim and Tammy Bakker scandal and Roberts has cost CBN $12 million so far and will cost $28 million by the end of the year.

“We have probably the finest forecasting and budgeting processes in the evangelical world but it is impossible to forecast an atomic explosion,” Robertson said.

“In the history of American Christianity we have never seen anything like this,” said Robertson, who is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination.

Bakker’s admission of having sex with a church secretary forced him to give up the PTL organization he founded and led to charges of homosexuality and gross financial improprieties. Roberts was criticized for going on his television show and saying he would die unless he received $8 million in donations by April 1--a goal that was met.

The CBN layoffs include 200 full-time workers and another 300 part-time workers or full-time temporaries, Robertson said. CBN employs about 2,000 people, three-fourths of them in Virginia Beach.

“We are laying off godly, dedicated, wonderful people--500 of them--because we just don’t have the money to pay their salaries,” Robertson said.

In addition, some activities of Robertson’s “Operation Blessing” ministry will be curtailed and a toll-free phone line for CBN callers will be discontinued. Robertson urged viewers to write in with their contributions.

During a CBN fund-raising telethon earlier this year, pledges of $33 million were made by viewers. That was a drop of 56% from two years ago when followers donated $75 million.