TV & VIDEO - Sept. 16, 1988

From our Wages of Sin File: Arbitron, the audience-measuring firm, reports that defrocked evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, rocked by a sex scandal that forced his ouster from the Assemblies of God Church, has lost almost half his television viewers. The preacher has fallen from being the most-watched TV evangelist a year ago to third place overall, according to Arbitron. In July, 1987, Swaggart could claim 1.69 million TV homes watched his Sunday worship service and daily Bible study programs. The latest Arbitron ratings, for July, 1988, show Swaggart was seen in 836,000 TV homes. Swaggart, who was instrumental in causing the downfalls of fellow evangelists Jim Bakker and Marvin Gorman, tearfully admitted in February that he had committed a “moral sin”--reportedly involving a prostitute.