Falwell Ministry Creates New Television Network

The Rev. Jerry Falwell’s ministry has created a new television network as a profit-making venture.

The company, FamilyNetwork Broadcasting Inc., is headed by Falwell’s associate, Jerry Nims, president of Moral Majority and Liberty Federation.

“Our target is the secular market,” Nims said of FamilyNet. The network supplies religious, sports and entertainment programs and is available to about 11 million homes in the United States, he said.

Nims said the business grew out of the experience he and Falwell had when they temporarily headed PTL last year after the downfall of Jim and Tammy Bakker.

“To have a good network, it has to be able to compete,” he said, and that requires a “profit vehicle” and should not be hidden as a nonprofit ministry as PTL was.

FamilyNet is owned by two of Falwell’s nonprofit organizations, the Old Time Gospel Hour Inc., and Liberty Broadcasting Network. After paying taxes, FamilyNet is to return dividends to them for their ministry work, Nims said.

The new network, based in Lynchburg, Va., with other Falwell organizations, was started in April with little news coverage or general knowledge of its profit-making aspect tied to Falwell’s ministries.

Until FamilyNet was created as a profit-making venture, Falwell’s nonprofit Liberty Broadcasting Network (LBN) supplied mainly religious programs to cable TV systems.

LBN was available to about 1 million homes. FamilyNet has grown to about 1.2 million cable homes. By contrast, Pat Robertson’s 11-year-old CBN Cable Network says it reaches 41.6 million homes.

In addition to cable systems, FamilyNet is carried on some television stations with a potential audience of 10 million homes.

The new network also sells some of its programs to other networks and expects to provide NCAA sports from the Southern Conference this fall to enough networks to reach 25% of all U.S. homes with cable, Nims said.

Upon creation of FamilyNet, LBN became “a production company that supplies programs to FamilyNet,” said Jerry Whitehurst, a FamilyNet marketing executive.

Nims said FamilyNet, which operates around the clock, is aggressively trying to get on more cable systems.

Unlike other cable networks that charge cable systems to carry their programs, FamilyNet is provided to cable systems at no charge. Its revenue, Nims said, comes from advertising and sales of programs to other networks.

“It’s difficult to get cable systems to carry new networks because there has been such a proliferation of networks and because most cable systems are limited in the number of channels,” said an official of one cable network.

Falwell’s Sunday morning church service and a daily talk show he hosts are among FamilyNet’s programs.

Celebrities on FamilyNet programs include Christian singers Gary McSpadden and Doug Oldham. Former New York Yankee Bobby Richardson has a sports show. Preachers John Ankerberg, and D. James Kennedy, the current moderator of the Presbyterian Church in America, have programs on Family Net.