Guardian: 'The show is like a coffee morning in slow motion'

[muriel_volestrangler]

Revelation TV, a low-budget, family-run Christian cable station, has finally won its battle to be allowed to raise funds on air. Is this the birth of British televangelism? Patrick Barkham spends a day on set

You can find heaven, and part with a small slice of your personal fortune, if you take a trip to the 700s. There are pastors on the phone, and gospel singers crying out in exultation as they make hysterical appeals for your cash on Sky channels 760 to 780. With names such as Inspiration and Loveworld, all but two of this cluster of evangelical Christian stations are beamed to the UK from abroad. In their midst at 765, however, sit a middle-aged couple from Surbiton chatting about the morning newspapers. It's a bit like a coffee morning in slow motion.

Sporting a silvery thatch of hair that miraculously thickened shortly after he took up Christian broadcasting, 60-year-old Howard Conder reads the Sun's front page on Robbie Williams. "'Happy pills, sleeping pills, 36 espressos, 60 Silk Cut, 20 Red Bulls every day'. I believe he's worth £70m, but he's not a happy bunny," he says, before confessing that he, too, suffers from depression. His wife, Lesley, nods. "We're empty inside, so we need to fill ourselves with the word of God on a daily basis," adds Howard quietly. "Although we read the newspapers, we really need to read the word of God. Sorry, I'm giving a bit of a plug for the Bible this morning."
Welcome to Revelation TV. For the past four years, the Conders have broadcast from a tiny jumble of a studio a minute - and light years - away from the sleek, amoral television companies of Soho and Charlotte Street. When not presenting - although sometimes they do these things while they are on live telly as well - Howard and Lesley direct, produce graphics, answer the telephone, book guests and order equipment. They are helped by their four children, the youngest of whom, Bethany, 11, has her own show, R Kidz, and a youthful staff of 15. Shunned by mainstream advertisers and barred by Ofcom from raising funds on air, the Conders have scrimped and saved and remortgaged their house to keep on broadcasting.

Now all that has changed. Despite the opposition of the Church of England, which fears the "potential for exploiting viewers' sensitivities", Howard Conder's lonely lobbying has paid off: Ofcom has amended its regulations to allow Revelation TV to ask for money on air. Is this the birth of British televangelism? Will well-fed pastors coerce money out of Brassic of Bolton while happy-clappy hordes charm cheques from Gullible of Guildford?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,2024907,00.html

I didn't know there had been an express ban on raising funds on air for religious channels - which might well be one reason why there haven't been many British religious channels, so far. This couple seem pretty harmless. Anyone who stops working with an American TV evangelist because he doesn't like his style is still thinking about what is right, anyway. I hope being able to raise funds doesn't change this station's attitude much. But I'll be more worried if other, more American (sorry, guys, but obnoxious TV evangelists are quintessentially American) stations open.

I like the touch of the couple being from Surbiton - for those of you who know about 70s British sitcoms, these people are clearly the Tom and Barbara Good of TV evangelism, doing it on a showstring. But does that make the Islam Channel next door, with a basically good relationship, but a few fundamental differences, Jerry and Margot? :evilgrin:

[moggie]

1. Simple way to tell:

Wait and see which station has Mrs Doombs-Paterson as a guest.

[struggle4progress]

2. Somehow, these shows never seem to thunder out the social justice message of the prophets

Sending those who are well-fed away while feeding hungry, for example, doesn't seem to be a message that is repeated much with modern instruments for the mass production of consciousness