Robertson Bullish on Family Channel, UPI

With a flurry of recent media deals that include a first-time listing on the New York Stock Exchange and an offer to purchase United Press International (UPI), Pat Robertson has stepped boldly into the mainstream of the broadcast industry. The move has drawn new attention to the 62-year-old Robertson, prompting comparisons of his smaller, but growing media empire with that of Ted Turner.

On April 28, the Family Channel, the commercial cable spin-off of Robertson’s CBN, made its appearance on the exchange, with a $150 million initial public offering of stock. The channel, which offers a mix of family entertainment, including fifties-era sitcoms and westerns, reaches 55 million households. It is owned by International Family Entertainment, Inc. (IFE), which comprises members of Robertson’s family, a Denver-based cable company, and CBN employees.

It was, in fact, the success of the Family Channel that prompted the formation of IFE in 1990, when the Internal Revenue Service warned that CBN could lose its tax-exempt status because of the channel’s commercial growth. Today IFE is valued at $400 million to $450 million, and has seen revenues for the Family Channel double in less than five years, from $62 million in 1988 to $128 million last year.

Critics have complained it is the Robertsons who have gained most from the stock sale. “Is anything illegal in all this?” asks Randall Balmer, associate professor of religion at Columbia University. “Perhaps not.” But Balmer, writing in a Religious News Service column, says building the profitable cable channel on tax-deductible contributions seems irrefutably “unethical.” Robertson told CHRISTIANITY TODAY that CBN, which held two-thirds of the 10 million shares of common stock in the channel, gained about $100 million in cash from the sale. He said IFE stockholders urged him to keep 900,000 shares of the stock, which have a market value of between $9 million and $27 million. That money has been placed in a charitable trust, with CBN as the beneficiary. Robertson will stay on with the company at least five years to ensure its success. His son Tim, IFE’s president, holds about 600,000 shares, he said.

While analysts were still digesting the move onto the market, Tim Robert son announced on May 3 that IFE will create “The Game Channel,” billed as “the first 24-hour, interactive basic cable network featuring original and established game shows.”

About a week later, the elder Robertson arrived in Rutland, Vermont, at a bankruptcy hearing for UPI and offered $6 million for the news service and radio network. At press time, Robertson’s offer was in a 30-day grace period, during which he could rescind or lower his offer.

In a telephone interview with CT, Robertson discussed his recent transactions:

A Wall Street Journal article said “UPI Deal Could Give Robertson Secular Acceptance.” Are you trying to buy credibility?

I couldn’t care less about credibility. I am too old and have done so many things. What I am interested in doing, primarily, is bringing truth to the world.

Your recent media dealings have made you more prominent in secular circles. What is your philosophy behind that?

I don’t buy this Manichaean dualism that says the material world goes on one side, and the spiritual world goes on another, and Christians can’t get involved in either one. I think God wants his people to have available to themselves the means to do outreach. I am just getting ready, for example, to start a major agricultural project in Africa that involves several million dollars. Those people are starving to death. I can get some people to grow some food and can feed millions of people. But in order to do that, I need some money.

Some have said that in building your media empire, you’ve been influenced by reconstructionist thought.

I don’t agree with reconstructionism, although I do believe that Jesus is Lord of all the world. I believe that he is Lord of the government, and the church, and business and education, and, hopefully, one day, Lord of the press. I see him involved in everything. And that’s why I don’t want to stay just in the church, as such. I want the church to move into the world.

A hundred years ago, evangelicals were major forces in media. There were, as I understand, 52 Christian newspapers in New York alone, according to Cal Thomas. Think of the major Christian business leaders, fellows like J. C. Penney. The Rockefellers were strong Baptists. Somewhere along the way we decided we were going to withdraw from the world and wait for the coming of Jesus and for the Rapture. I think our eschatology was flawed, frankly.

Did you plan the recent, sudden succession of business moves?

No, it has just come along. Actually, I have a much less-calculated delivery. I am trying to be led by the Spirit, and I think God has got some pretty exciting things going on in this decade. I’m just trying to stay up with him. It doesn’t come out of a great philosophy.

So you don’t have a game plan that we are seeing enacted?

The game plan is something that was somewhat independently enunciated by [Campus Crusade for Christ president] Bill Bright and [Navigators president] Lorne Sanny and me. It was back in the late 1970s, and it was that God wants to bring redemption to every aspect of human life: the arts, the media, business, the church, education, politics, et cetera. I think we are beginning to see some of that happen.

Some critics say you have taken CBN donor money and turned it into personal gain with the Family Channel.

CBN did not spend donor money on the Family Channel, except for a very limited amount in the beginning, a few hundred thousand dollars at most. The Family Channel has always made money. That is the reason that the IRS forced CBN to sell it, because it was very profitable. The reason that it was profitable was the blessing of the Lord, of course, but also skilled management.

When the UPI offer was announced, you said you did not plan to change it into a religious news operation. But you also said that UPI “may be a little opportunity” for God to touch society. How do you reconcile those statements?

We are going to bring truth and love to people. What I meant was that I wasn’t going to make UPI into a religious news service reporting religious news. I think God is present at the birth of a baby, at a marriage and a divorce, in riots, in poverty and prosperity, and in all the aspects of human life. I think God is immanent and transcendent. To report the events of the world truthfully is a function of part of his world. I don’t see any dichotomy between honest reporting of the news and strong religious faith.

But the relativistic view of truth of some reporters and your absolutist view of the truth are obviously different. Might they clash?

That is a problem. I mean it sincerely. The question is, Is it possible to put new wine into old wineskins? The Bible indicates it may not be. I certainly think UPI, which has lost money for the last 30 years, has got to have something done differently. But I think that an evangelical Christian can accommodate truth from any side, if it’s the truth. I don’t think we have any problem with that.

The problem is that the people on the Left don’t want to accommodate Christianity anywhere. That’s what worries me. They don’t want Christians in the media. I have no problem with somebody who has a different point of view, as long as he is not slanting the story.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.