The PTL Club , also known as The Jim and Tammy Show , was a Christian television program that was first hosted by evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker , running from 1974 to 1989. The program was later known as PTL Today and as Heritage Today . During its final years, The PTL Club , which adopted a talk show format, was the flagship television program of the Bakkers' PTL Satellite Network .
41-415: PTL may refer to: The PTL Club , a former television program PTL Satellite Network Pass transistor logic in digital electronic circuits Pittsburgh Today Live, program on KDKA-TV Propositional temporal logic (Linear temporal logic) "PTL", a song by Relient K from the album Collapsible Lung Paschall Truck Lines Topics referred to by
82-578: A MeTV affiliate since 2016, which is carried on WTHR's third digital subchannel as well. In January 2017, LeSEA announced All Sports Channel 40.3, a subchannel with programming from the American Sports Network . It aired college basketball and ice hockey from the Big Ten Conference , Mid-American Conference , Horizon League and Hockey East . The subchannel also featured a sports talk show. The affiliation only lasted
123-589: A 'hostile takeover' of the television ministry by people threatening to expose a sexual encounter he admitted to having seven years earlier with church secretary Jessica Hahn ." According to Hahn, on the afternoon of December 6, 1980, when she was a 21-year-old church secretary, Bakker and another preacher, John Wesley Fletcher drugged and raped her for "about 15 minutes". Hahn stated she overheard Bakker say afterward to another PTL staffer, "Did you get her too?" A federal grand jury indicted Bakker for diverting millions of dollars of church funds to personal use. Much of
164-403: A 24-hour schedule by 1981; around this time, WHMB ran Christian programs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.; cartoons from 7 to 9 a.m. and 3 to 5 p.m.; classic sitcoms from 1 to 3 p.m.; and a mix of sitcoms and occasional westerns from about 5 to 7 p.m. On Saturdays, the station ran children's and family-oriented secular programming, most of which
205-666: A day in 1975; at that time, WHMB began airing The PTL Club , which it aired in its two-hour broadcast (which was reduced to one hour in 1982) as well as one-hour versions that aired twice a day; the station also aired religious programs from televangelists such as Jimmy Swaggart and Richard Roberts . In addition, the station also aired a few locally produced shows; Von Saum hosted a weekday afternoon children's program from 1972 until shortly before his death from heart failure in 1993 titled Pirate Adventures with Captain Hook , in which Saum (whose left leg and arm were amputated after he
246-567: A few others. The show launched nationally in 1975, with two editions offered: one was the full two-hour edition, which tended to air on Christian stations and smaller independent stations, and the other was a one-hour edition which tended to air on stronger independent stations, as well as network affiliates. By 1976, the Bakkers moved their studio to the site of a former furniture store in Charlotte. With The PTL Club program as its centerpiece,
287-407: A new entity known as Heritage Ministries to run the television program and associated ministry functions. As Heritage USA and PTL assets were now tied up in bankruptcy reorganization, the new ministry and the television program had to move from their longtime Heritage USA broadcast studios to newly bought property on Nations Ford Road in Charlotte that was named Heritage Place. The program remained on
328-453: A new station in Lawrence, Indiana , on the channel 40 allocation for Indianapolis. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the application on November 22, 1966. At that time, White River also had a pending application for a new radio station at 1110 kHz. It was years before anyone saw a picture on channel 40. The nominal city of license was changed to Indianapolis in 1968,
369-427: A short time, with a "WHMB-40.3" logo screen broadcasting from April until the end of May 2017. At the end of May 2017, LeSEA shuffled World Harvest Television to its 40.3 subchannel, and added Light TV to 40.2. In September 2018, 40.3 was realigned to broadcast HSN , and WHT was dropped. In May 2020, Light TV was dropped, and QVC was added to 40.2. On October 17, 2024, WHMB announced that Chicago Sports Network ,
410-551: Is multiplexed : WHMB-TV was the only LeSEA-owned station that was not included in a groupwide affiliation agreement with Cozi TV that was announced on June 17, 2014; the network, which primarily airs classic television series (including some that are currently or have previously aired on WHMB), has been carried locally on the second digital subchannel of NBC affiliate WTHR (channel 13) since March 2013 due to an existing agreement with then-owner Dispatch Broadcast Group and its Class A sister station WALV-CD (channel 46), now
451-549: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages The PTL Club Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker had been in the ministry with the Assemblies of God denomination since the early 1960s prior to joining Pat Robertson 's Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), then based in Portsmouth , Virginia , in 1965. The Bakkers launched a children's show called Come On Over where
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#1732798667234492-532: The PTL Club . In the fall of 1981, the show was cut to an hour, at which length it remained until its cancellation. Due to his involvement in highly publicized financial and sexual scandals, Jim Bakker resigned on March 19, 1987. He turned all ministry assets over to Lynchburg, Virginia –based pastor and broadcaster Jerry Falwell , who became CEO of the parent organization, Heritage Village Church and Missionary Fellowship, Inc. and assumed control of Heritage USA,
533-498: The 1971 season. After little more than a year with a poor advertising market, White River got out of television. Assembly of God minister Lester Sumrall filed to buy WURD from Hansen in May 1972. By that time, channel 40 had curtailed telecasting to two days a week. Broadcast operations were suspended on June 25 ahead of the sale; creditors were already suing in court to try and force the station into bankruptcy. The FCC approved of
574-663: The 1990s, the station began acquiring somewhat more recent sitcoms from the 1970s and 1980s. WHMB eventually reduced its secular programming (consisting of sitcoms, drama series and lifestyle programs) to 2 to 7 p.m. each weekday and a scattered amount for a few hours a day on Saturdays, along with carrying children's programs complying with the FCC's educational programming guidelines for two hours on Saturday mornings and an hour on Sunday afternoons. In August 2024, WHMB and South Bend sister station WHME-TV switched their primary channels to Univision. WHMB's Univision affiliation marks
615-517: The Bakkers and their staff built what became known as the PTL Television Network , broadcasting worldwide. In a Tonight Show -type format, the program featured many well-known ministers and Christian recording artists. In the beginning, Henry "Uncle Henry" Harrison, who had worked with Bakker at CBN, was Bakker's co-host and sidekick (much like Ed McMahon to Johnny Carson ), and when Tammy Faye took over as co-host, Harrison became
656-654: The Spanish-language network Univision . It is owned by the Family Broadcasting Corporation (formerly known as LeSEA Broadcasting and later World Harvest Broadcasting). WHMB's studios are located on Greenfield Avenue in Noblesville , and its transmitter is located on Walnut Drive in northwestern Indianapolis. White River Radio Corporation, owned by Rev. Wendell Hansen of Noblesville, filed an application on August 19, 1966, to build
697-764: The air as late as September 1988, when Johnson faced problems with the IRS. In 1989, evangelist Morris Cerullo purchased the network out of bankruptcy. As of 2012 , it operates as INSP from broadcast facilities in Charlotte, with headquarters in nearby Indian Land , South Carolina. On August 23, 1991, after the second and final day of his re-sentencing hearing, the court reduced Bakker's original 45-year sentence to 18 years, five of which he actually served before being released. In February 2009, Atlanta , Georgia investment-banker Ben Dyer announced his intention to auction off over 15,000 hours of videotaped episodes of The PTL Club on March 27, 2009. A friend of Jim Bakker's purchased
738-611: The announcer. The program was later broadcast from Bakker's Heritage Village ministry headquarters and complex on Park Road in Charlotte, and then moved to studios constructed at the ministry's new 2500-acre mixed-use family theme park and resort in Fort Mill, South Carolina , known as Heritage USA . Bakker's conspicuous consumption and prosperity gospel preaching led critics to claim that PTL stood for "Pass The Loot". As time went on and as more stations had additional programming commitments by 1980, many opted to only run an hour of
779-691: The cable network, and of its flagship program. Falwell's involvement was deemed newsworthy, as the PTL ministries were a part of the Assemblies of God denomination and Falwell was a Southern Baptist . Ministry supporters questioned Falwell's intentions and attributed his interest solely to maintaining control of the lucrative cable-television empire owned by PTL to broadcast his own ministry programming. One commentator noted that "Bakker arranged for Falwell to take over PTL in March in an effort to avoid what he called
820-523: The couple entertained viewers with songs, stories, and puppets. In 1966, Jim Bakker became the host of The 700 Club , a religious talk program that evolved from a telethon . The 700 Club would become the flagship program of CBN, which expanded from its original Hampton Roads station to include outlets in Atlanta and Dallas–Fort Worth by 1973. Beginning in 1972, the Bakker-hosted 700 Club
861-608: The first shows for the Black community in Indianapolis. White River was heavily undercapitalized for starting a television station, and few viewers were finding their way to tune to the UHF band, even with the recent launch of WFYI on channel 20. Within months, programming was cut back to save on electricity. In its largest programming coup, the station managed to secure the rights to rebroadcast Chicago White Sox games midway through
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#1732798667234902-455: The local rights to The 700 Club , which WHMB ran twice each weekday (it eventually ran a 90-minute edition of the program live at 10 a.m., along twice daily repeats of the hour-long version of the program by the latter part of the decade). By that point, the station also began carrying additional secular programming, with a mix of children's programs and westerns airing from about 3 to 6 p.m. The station began broadcasting 18 hours
943-597: The local television home for the Chicago Bulls , Blackhawks and White Sox , would begin broadcasting on the station's second and sixth subchannels. The station is disallowed from carrying Bulls games to protect the local rights for the Indiana Pacers . WHMB-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 40, on January 16, 2009. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 16, using virtual channel 40. In May 2012,
984-500: The nation watched the court case to see the outcome of the $ 165 million in donations. The PTL Club continued as a television program for a considerable time after this, first with Falwell as its host and PTL personality Doug Oldham as co-host. Falwell later brought in Christian singer Gary McSpadden as the show's co-host, along with PTL musical talent Ron Aldridge. The show was renamed PTL Today , then—in an effort to distance
1025-500: The network's national feed; however, Bright House decided not to pursue a contract with the network at that time. During the mid-1990s, WHMB aired a rebroadcast of then CBS affiliate WISH-TV (channel 8, now a CW affiliate)'s 6 p.m. newscast on a one-hour delay at 7 p.m. In 1997, the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) awarded WHMB the local television rights to
1066-513: The network's return to the Indianapolis market after its previous affiliate, WIIH-CA , dropped Univision programming after that station's then-owner LIN failed to renew its contract with the network (which expired on December 31, 2008), and adopted a weather-focused programming format, branded as "LWS: Local Weather Station". As a result, two other pay television providers in the Indianapolis market, Comcast and AT&T U-verse secured carriage agreements with Univision to receive its programming from
1107-539: The programs. The master library of PTL programming has been returned to Jim Bakker and the old tapes are being digitally remastered and restored. Restored programs are being run on the new PTL Television Network on Roku and online at the PTL Television Network's website. WHMB-TV WHMB-TV (channel 40) is a television station in Indianapolis, Indiana , United States, affiliated with
1148-457: The sale to Sumrall's LeSea Broadcasting on August 15, 1972. The station resumed broadcasting on November 3 with a new call sign, WHMB-TV, and a schedule of mostly religious programs. It was LeSea's first television property; at the time, it only owned a radio station, WHME in South Bend . In 1974, the station expanded its broadcasting hours, signing on in the late morning; it also acquired
1189-403: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title PTL . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PTL&oldid=1209556390 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1230-494: The same year ground was broken on facilities. In January 1969, the project was said to be "stalled by construction delays"; later that year, the Christian Broadcasting Network filed to purchase the unbuilt station, which would have been its second television property. CBN bowed out of the deal at the start of 1970, and the project continued on an on-again, off-again basis, though transmitter equipment
1271-460: The series to several countries, dropped the program when it returned recordings of the episodes to the now-deceased Saum years later. Channel 40 also ran twice-a-day airings of a locally produced weekday bible study program hosted by Lester Sumrall, as well as a Christian -oriented music and variety program hosted by the Sumrall family that aired three times a day. The station began broadcasting on
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1312-428: The show from the PTL name— Heritage Today . Aldridge continued as co-host alongside another PTL singer, Brenda Davis, after Falwell suddenly resigned from the now-bankrupt PTL ministry. McSpadden and Oldham subsequently left the show out of support for Falwell's decision to resign his position with the ministry. With Falwell's resignation, Sam Johnson, a member of the PTL ministry team, assumed leadership and incorporated
1353-678: The show. In the fall of 1974, Bakker broke up with Trinity Broadcasting, secured usage of the PTL acronym from the Crouches, and called his new show The PTL Club . The PTL Club continued being produced at WRET and in November 1974, the show expanded to a few other stations such as WHMB-TV in Indianapolis ; WHCT in Hartford , Connecticut ; and KHOF-TV in the Los Angeles area, among
1394-461: The statewide boys' and girls' high school basketball tournament finals and high school football championship games after UPN affiliate WTTV (channel 4, now a CBS affiliate) chose not to renew its contract to carry the games citing ratings declines; that year, the IHSAA converted its basketball tournament from a single-class to a multi-class format. WHMB opted against renewing the contract in 2004;
1435-487: The station continues to air high school football and basketball games on Friday nights during the IHSAA athletic season. The station also maintains rights to broadcast a handful of minor league baseball games annually from the Indianapolis Indians ; during instances in which the station carries an away game featuring the team, WHMB instead transmits the home team's broadcast feed. From 2012 to 2019, WHMB-TV
1476-510: The station's then-owner Ted Turner approached Bakker about buying two hours a day on the outlet, which Bakker accepted. Initially, his show in Charlotte was under the umbrella of Crouch's Trinity Broadcasting and also called Praise The Lord. This edition of the show was launched in a small studio at WRET-TV. The 700 Club moved to then- ABC affiliate WCCB in Charlotte. Soon after, 16 WGGS-TV in Greenville , South Carolina also picked up
1517-540: Was delivered in May 1970. The transmitter was finally turned on on December 15, 1970, with programs starting two months later, on February 22. White River's radio station had also been approved after years of planning and signed on the air at the same time as WHYT . The TV station aired some syndicated children's shows, including Romper Room and Bozo the Clown . There was also country music programming, some public affairs, and religious programming, as well as one of
1558-489: Was drawn from their weekday schedule from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and religious programming during the nighttime hours, and a schedule consisting entirely of Christian-oriented religious programs on Sundays. Gradually, by 1983, WHMB carried Christian programming for much of the broadcast day, with breakaway windows for secular programming (including sitcoms, westerns and public domain movies) each weekday from 3 to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. By
1599-533: Was hit by a car while riding his motorcycle at age 17 in 1960) and other cast members playing Hook's pirates used music and object lessons to teach children about Jesus Christ . Saum, who originated the Captain Hook character after a preacher encouraged him to a develop the character for Saum's children's ministry tours by acquiring a hook for his prosthetic arm and costume, was approached by Sumrall to bring his character to television. WHMB, which later syndicated
1640-628: Was launched in a dozen test markets, including then-independent station WRET-TV in Charlotte , North Carolina . However, the Bakkers departed CBN in 1973 and relocated to Southern California for a brief period, where they assisted Paul and Jan Crouch in launching Trinity Broadcasting Network and the show Praise the Lord before eventually starting their own television ministry in North Carolina. When WRET-TV dropped The 700 Club in 1973,
1681-654: Was the Indianapolis home to the syndicated package of Atlantic Coast Conference football and men's basketball games originating from the ACC Network , an ad hoc syndicated sports network operated by Raycom Sports . The package included some men's basketball games involving the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish as that school's sports programs (except football ) joined the ACC in July 2013. The station's signal