PTL Pleads for Cash to Stay on Air

The financially crippled PTL television ministry cut 162 people from its payroll Wednesday and pleaded with the faithful to send cash to keep it from going off the air within two weeks.

The plea came the day after the ministry’s new trustee, M. C. (Red) Benton, said he would not rule out allowing Jim and Tammy Bakker to appeal for money on television.

The ministry has fallen on hard times since March, 1987, when Jim Bakker resigned in the aftermath of a sex scandal.

PTL, with current debts of about $130 million and assets of $160 million, filed for reorganization and protection from creditors in bankruptcy court in June, 1987.

Benton told a federal bankruptcy judge that donations have dried up, and said: “When we can’t meet the payroll we’ll close the doors. The show will have to go off the air if we can’t pay the affiliates.”

Staff Cut to 500

Employees gathered in the television studio Wednesday to learn who would get the ax in the most recent layoff. The cuts leave a staff of about 500--less than half the number of people once employed at the studio and at PTL’s Christian-theme amusement park.

Donations have fallen off dramatically since the Internal Revenue Service announced that it was revoking the ministry’s tax-exempt status. Contributions reached a daily low of $18,000 on Monday.

Bakker had turned PTL over to Baptist TV preacher Jerry Falwell, who took the organization to bankruptcy court and later quit in a dispute with the judge.