2 TBN Stations Up for Sale : Move Breaks Vow Made to Viewers of Christian Network

For the first time in its history, the Tustin-based Trinity Broadcasting Network is selling two of its commercial television stations, something founder Paul F. Crouch promised viewers he would never do.

The two stations, in Albuquerque, N.M., and Greensboro, N.C., are advertised in the March 6 issue of Broadcasting Magazine for “$5 million for the pair, or best realistic offer” by a “Highly Motivated Seller.” Those interested are asked to contact a Washington media broker.

In a written statement in answer to questions posed Thursday by The Times, Crouch said he is selling because Trinity Broadcasting Network has applied to buy a station in Atlanta. To comply with the Federal Communications Commission policy limiting to 12 the number of commercial stations allocated to a single individual or group, the network would have to sell at least one station.

The broker, Jim Gammon, handles both Christian and non-Christian broadcast properties. He said the sale price includes studios and equipment but that one problem was that “there are many more stations on the market now. The market is soft.”

The Trinity stations now on the market compete with commercial Christian stations in both the New Mexico and North Carolina markets, as well as non-commercial Christian stations.

“There are a lot of stations going after a narrow segment of audience,” Gammon said.

In the past, Crouch has told viewers that if it became necessary to divest himself of smaller stations in order to acquire larger stations, he would give the stations to other Christian broadcasters.

Crouch did not explain why he was selling two stations at a time when he was acquiring only one.

Trinity and its subsidiaries now own 17 full-power stations around the country, including its flagship, KTBN-Channel 40 in Tustin. Two of these station are operated as minority enterprises under a special provision of FCC policy and three others are educational, and exempt from the FCC’s ownership limits. TBN owns more than 75 low-power stations in the United States and more than a dozen full-power stations internationally.

TBN, according to Crouch’s statement, “will be working with someone to take over the stations who will continue to serve the community in the Christian and religious areas, and hopefully in affiliation with TBN. Any anticipated sale would be strictly for the value of the assets, and not for a profit consideration.” Three years ago, according to a TBN newsletter, TBN bought the two stations for a total of $3.95 million.

The sale comes at a time when the Ethics Committee of the National Religious Broadcasters is studying a complaint that was filed with it against the 24-hour-a-day Christian broadcasting service. The ethics panel is expected to decide next week whether to recommend that Trinity be expelled from the NRB, a voluntary organization.

Keith Houser, a minister and Christian broadcaster now based in Dallas who has battled Crouch for control of a TBN station in New York, charged in his complaint to the Ethics Committee that Crouch was guilty of predatory competition against other Christian stations around the country, including in Albuquerque.

Among Christian broadcasters, Crouch is known as a fierce competitor, ignoring what was once an unwritten law that Christian broadcasters didn’t build new stations--at least in small and medium-sized markets where other Christian stations existed.

In the statement Thursday, Crouch said he “has never accepted the fact that there is any conflict with having more than one Christian TV station in the same market area.”

Crouch said he “has stated it is highly hypocritical and setting double standards to say you should only have one television station, and that this could serve the needs of all the people.”

In Albuquerque, TBN bought approximately six hours a day on a Christian station operated by Blackie Gonzalez. The station was the nation’s first Christian VHF outlet--that is, operating between channels 2 and 13.

Subsequently, Crouch bought KNAT-Channel 23, once owned by Johnny Carson, for $2.25 million, according to a March, 1986, TBN newsletter. TBN canceled its programming with Gonzalez when the new station in Albuquerque then began running TBN’s full slate of programming.

Gonzalez declined to comment on the impact of Crouch’s move to Albuquerque, but according to Houser’s complaint, “Crouch went on Blackie Gonzalez’s Christian station, built up a following of that station’s donors and then bought a station in the same market and took the donors away from the existing ministry.”

Crouch’s brother Phillip, who is vice president of TBN, said in an interview several weeks ago that such competition “isn’t really something wrong to do, in that both stations will have a different type of programming. It’s no different than one denomination building a church across the street from another. It just doesn’t seem that it would affect the audience very much. Wherever an opportunity has presented itself, we have felt this was an opportunity for us to go in and do what we could.”