Trinity Broadcasting Network | Principles & Practices

by Eli Thomas

Courtesy of tbn.org

Courtesy of The Orange County Register

Key People

CEO/ President/Board member/Founder: Paul Crouch (left)

Vice-President/Founder/Director of programming: Jen Crouch (center)

(Pictured: Brittany Koper, right)

History:

Trinity Broadcasting Network was started by Paul Crouch, Jan Crouch, Jim Bakker, and Tammy Faye Bakker in 1973 on the rented airtime Santa Ana California UHF TV station. The station almost went bankrupt in the first two days, however the channel slowly began to spread to cable and satellite distribution. Jim Bakker left TBN to start Praise the Lord, which collapsed in 1987 due to a sexual harassment and embezzlement scandal involving Jim Bakker [2]. TBN acquired many TV Networks to create its “family” of eighteen networks that span the globe [3].

About/Assets:

Trinity Broadcasting Network, the world’s largest Christian television network, has five thousand television stations operating on cable and thirty-three satellites. It is a non-profit religious organization that provides twenty-four hour religious programming for Protestant, Catholic, and Messanic Jewish – a combination Evangelical Christian theology and Jewish practice – faiths. It boasts eighteen networks that operate in thirteen different countries and continents including, Europe, the Middle East, Central Africa, Russia, India, Southwest Asia, and Brazil. The Christian programs include Gospel music, Live coverage of major Christian events, talk shows, and services of different churches in America. This also includes children’s programming such as Smile of a Child, offered in various languages across the globe as well. [3]

coutesy of fimbaza.net

TBN has several assets including Trinity Music USA located in Trinity City, Hendersonville, Tenessee. This includes a 2,000 seat Trinity Music City Church. TBN also has virtual reality theaters, two more of which they plan to build in Hawaii and Jerusalem, where they play famous ministry services and movies produced by TBN. TBN has produced twenty movies such as “The Revolutionary” (1995) and “The Revolutionary II” (1996), which are about the life of Jesus Christ, through its production company Gener8xion Entertaintment, which was headed by Matthew Crouch until mid 2010 and is currently under the direction of Jan Crouch. [5] [22]

Revolutionary (1995) produced by Gener8xion Entertainment. Image courtesy of Amazon.com

TBN also has The Holy Land Experience, a family-related park in Orlando, Florida designed for people to experience Jesus Christ’s life. It is ranked 78 out of 156 of the attractions in Orlando by Trip Advisor, on which it has a 3.5 out of 5 rating [6].

TBN has a program for prison inmates called Second Chance in which they show them TBN programming in order “…to offer America’s inmates a second chance to make good choices by providing positive, life-affirming television programming 24 hours a day.” [8] The program was started in 2007 and its most recent addition was installed in California’s San Quentin State Prison on August 20, 2012. The program is currently installed in prisons in thirty-one different states. The satellite dish, equipment, installation and broadcast is all donated by TBN. The program offers the TBN station as well as The Church Channel, which provides twenty-four hour sermons, as well as JCTV, the network for viewers ages 12-29, and Enlace, TBN’s Spanish-language religion channel. [9]

Recent News

November 2012

courtesy of enlace.org

Nov. 25; Enlace, TBN’s Spanish-Language religious station, taped its annual Noche De Paz (Night of Glory) Christmas program, a Christmas music event. This will be broadcasted during Christmas week on both DirecTV Latin America, and Enlace in Latin America and the U.S. [12]
Nov. 30; Enlace’s Facebook page reached one million likes [13]

October 2012

Oct. 10: TBN purchased London Production Facility near Wimbledon. TBN states that it will use this production facility for its London chapter of TBN Europe, and other international TBN networks. Dr. Raafat Girgis stated that the new facility will help TBN reach out to Muslims. [14]

Oct. 11: Scott Strapp of Creed will be on the program Praise the Lord on the TBN netowrk, and talk about his book “Sinner’s Creed” and how he changed from a rock star’s lifestyle to being saved by jesus. [15]

September 2012

Sept. 28: TBN announced that its program Second Chance, that donates programming to prisons for inmates, will start a pilot program providing TBN’s JCTV (Jesus Christ Television) to one of West Virginia’s twelve juvenile correctional halls. [16]

Sept 26: TBN purchased property for a studio in Jerusalem. The studio space will be used for producing programming for and broadcasting TBN shalom, a program started in TBN Russia, that will soon be based in Jerusalem. [17]

Sept 24: TBN won a bronze Stevie lifestyle award in the American Business Awards for their mobile app, iTBN, which allows for access to all 18 of their networks as well as on demand programming. The Stevie award is a business award with multiple categories extended to sixty nations that was started in 2002. [18] [19]

Finances:

Courtesy of Ministry Watch.

TBN is a religious non-profit organization that made over $200 million in the year 2010 and

Courtesy of Ministry Watch.

had $92.5 million in donations. It is classified as a 501(3) (c), a religious non-profit, by the IRS. Independent non-profits such as Ministry Watch keep records on TBN’s fiscal year in order to advise possible donors. Ministry Watch has given TBN an “F” in their “donor alert” section of the TBN profile due to a transparency issue from conflict in the Crouch family and information released about the abuse of donor funds and TBN finances in general. [20]

This has erupted from the lawsuit Paul and Jen Crouch’s granddaughter, Brittany Koper, 26, who was in charge of TBN’s finances, has launched on the founders of TBN. Paul and Jen Crouch have responded by suing Brittany Koper for drawing attention away from her and her husband’s own financial “sins”. Mr. and Mrs. Koper borrowed money from TBN for a down payment on a house, bought a condo, and extended a $650,000 loan to her uncle. Although all the loans have clear repayment terms with Paul Crouch Sr.’s signature,

Brittany Koper in front of her grandmother’s home in Newport Beach, CA. Courtesy of The New York Times.

TBN claims that Crouch’s signature was forged. In addition there are reporter letters from fall of 2011, when these loans were made, where Brittany Koper apologizes for lying and loaning herself company money. Mrs. Koper and her husband, Michael Koper, who also worked at TBN managing airtime sales, were fired from TBN after the network accused them of also stealing $1.3 million from the company for purchases of real estate and expensive cars. [21] [22]

Janice Crouch’s home in a gated community in Newport Beach, CA. worth $5.6 million. Courtesy of The New York Times.

Mr. and Mrs. Crouch each have a mansion one block away from each other in Newport Beach, CA, paid for by donations and tax-free revenue from TBN. Ms. Crouch’s mansion is worth $5.6 million. Mrs. Crouch rarely slept in the house, preferring a large company house near TBN’s amusement park, The Holy Land Experience, which Mrs. Crouch runs on the side. There were many empty houses owned by TBN in Texas, private corporate jets worth $8 and $49 million each bought and used for personal use by the founders of TBN, and a mobile home purchased supposedly for the use as an office, worth $100,000 that was actually used by Mrs. Crouch solely for her two Maltese dogs. [21] [22]

Brittany Koper’s Ordination. Many of the TBN employees were ordained as ministers to avoid paying social services and justifying giving family members houses often listed as “parsonages”. Courtesy of the New York Times

A former executive of TBN, Troy Clements, who was sales director and eventually personnel director until he resigned in 2008, reported Mrs. Crouch renting two adjacent rooms in the Loews Portofino Bay Hotel from 2008 to 2009 while they were remodeling the amusement park The Holy Land Experience. One was for herself, the other for her Maltese dogs and clothes. Matthew Crouch (son of Paul and Jen Crouch) racked up a food bill of $300,000 in one year alone, from “business dinners”. Mr. Clements, and several other TBN employees, reported that Mr. and Mrs. Crouch attributed these extravagances to them doing the lords work. A TBN spokesperson also stated that the executive salaries, established by an independent consulting firm, were $400,000 for Mr. Crouch as president, and $365,000 for Mrs. Crouch, as vice president, in 2010. [21] [22]

Colby May, TBN’s lawyer, denied all of these claims. Mr. May stated that all of the houses bought for Matthew Crouch, and those in Texas and Newport, were used for housing traveling employees and guests. The house that Mrs. Koper and other ex-employees of TBN claimed was for Matthew Crouch, was reported by Mr. May to have been a house used for filming the TBN program “Smile of a Child”. Mr. May addressed the extravogant spending as being necessary “…to convey the ministry’s position of accomplishment.”[21] [22]

Being a 501(3)(c) TBN could potentially loose tens of millions from the lawsuit should the label as a religious non-profit be retracted by the IRS. TBN will therefore be unable to accept any donations (of which they accepted $92.5 million of in 2010) and will have to pay taxes on all income they receive ($175.5 million total revenue in 2010). [21]

References

[0] TBN logo http://tbnnewswire.com/tbn/

[1] Paul and Jan Crouch http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2012/05/15/extravagant-spending-a-pervasive-issue-for-trinity-internal-review-says/154873/paul-and-jan-crouch/

[2] http://broadcasting.wikia.com/wiki/Trinity_Broadcasting_Network

[3] http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/156936-TV_s_Religious_Revival.php

[4] Gener8xion Entertainment logo http://www.filmbaza.net/indexes/index-logos/g-g_logos.htm

[5] http://www.imdb.com/company/co0059564/

[5.1] http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41N0YKQZ7YL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

[6] http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g34515-d318444-Reviews-Holy_Land_Experience-Orlando_Florida.html

[7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Na5Z_XcrrUg

[8] http://www.tbnsecondchance.org/mission.php

[9] http://tbnnewswire.com/tbn/second-chance/