Sacred Airtime: American Church Structures and the Rise of Televangelism

Abstract

During the 1960s, independent conservative churches wrested control of national religious broadcasting in the United States from the powerful mainstream denominations that had previously dominated it. This paper examines how they did so despite enormous disadvantages in size, power, funding and technological expertise. It argues that the technology associated with national paid-time broadcasting created strong, non-geographically based bonds between viewers and broadcasters that clashed with the regional authority structures of large denominations. By contrast, these bonds mirrored the existing structures of independent churches. The changes in federal regulation and the television industry during the 1960s, which emphasized paid-time broadcasting, therefore heavily favored the independents. This paper reviews the history of religious broadcasting and the relevant aspects of television technology, and it assesses the future of American religious television.