Christian Broadcasting Network

Pat Robertson established the Christian Broadcasting Network in January 1960 with a modest budget and a struggling UHF station license in Portsmouth, Virginia. The station, WYAH-TV, named for Yahweh, first went on air October 1, 1961, broadcasting live half hour programs each night with barely enough transmitter power to reach across the Portsmouth city limits.

Robertson built the network on a principle unusual among broadcasters of any kind: he refused paid commercial advertising, choosing instead to fund CBN through direct viewer support. When the fledgling network needed 7,000 dollars a month to cover its budget, CBN held its first telethon in 1963, appealing for 700 viewers willing to contribute 10 dollars a month. The response gave the network both a funding model and a name for the program built around it, The 700 Club, which grew from a fundraising vehicle into CBN's enduring flagship broadcast.

Widely credited as the first Christian television network established in the United States, CBN grew from that single Portsmouth transmitter into a national and international satellite operation, providing both a broadcasting model and, directly, early professional experience for figures including Jim and Tammy Bakker, who worked at CBN before founding Trinity Broadcasting Network and later PTL.

The 700 Club, born from CBN's 1963 telethon, has remained the network's flagship program for more than six decades, making it one of the longest running programs of any kind in American television. Its format, a mix of news commentary, interviews, testimony and on air prayer, became a template other religious broadcasters, including the PTL Club, adapted for their own daily programming.

Pat Robertson hosted The 700 Club for most of its run, using the program's reach to build institutions well beyond broadcasting: Regent University, founded in Virginia Beach; the Christian Coalition, founded in 1989, one of the most consequential grassroots organizations in the growth of the religious right in American politics; and Operation Blessing International, a humanitarian relief organization. Robertson also sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, finishing second in the Iowa caucuses before withdrawing from the race.

Robertson stepped back from regular hosting duties in his later years and died at his Virginia Beach home on June 8, 2023, at age 93. His son, Gordon Robertson, now hosts The 700 Club, and CBN continues to operate as an international Christian broadcaster headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia.