The 700 Club

The 700 Club
The 700 Club intertitle
Genre	Religious broadcasting
Starring	Pat Robertson (1966-1987, 1988-present) Kristi Watts (1989-present) Terry Meeuwsen (1993-present) Lee Webb (1993-present) Gordon P. Robertson (1996-present)
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Production location	Virginia Beach, Virginia
Running time	60 minutes
Original release
Network	Syndicated (1966-present) CBN Cable/The Family Channel/Fox Family/ABC Family (1977-Present)
Release	April 1, 1966 – Present

The 700 Club is the flagship news talk show of the Christian Broadcasting Network, airing in syndication throughout the United States and Canada. In production since 1966, it is currently hosted by Pat Robertson, Terry Meeuwsen, Kristi Watts, and Gordon P. Robertson, two of whom (one male and one female) will host on any given day. Lee Webb serves as the CBN News anchorman.

Previous co-hosts include Ben Kinchlow (1975–88, 1992–96), Sheila Walsh (1988–92), Danuta Rylko Soderman (1983–87), and Lisa Ryan. Tim Robertson served as host for a year from 1987-88 along with Kinchlow and actress Susan Howard while his father ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in the 1988 campaign. The original host was Jim Bakker and his co-host was Henry Harrison.

The show presents news stories from Robertson's religious and political perspective, often relating stories to passages from the Bible along with commentary from the hosts. Celebrities and other guests are interviewed about religious views. The news segments frequently emphasize an apocalyptic eschatology.

Religious lifestyle issues are presented from distinct Pentecostal/charismatic ideological viewpoints.

Early history

In 1961 Pat Robertson, the son of former U.S. Senator A. Willis Robertson, purchased the license for WTOV-TV, channel 27 in Portsmouth, Virginia. The station had gone off the air five years earlier due to poor viewership. Robertson returned in October as WYAH-TV (now WGNT), broadcasting Christian programming to the Hampton Roads area.

In 1962, the station suffered financially and almost closed. To keep the station on the air, WYAH decided to produce a special telethon edition of the show. For the telethon, Robertson set a goal of 700 members each contributing $10.00 per month, which was enough to support the station. Robertson referred to these members as the '700 Club' and the name stuck. The telethon was successful and is still held annually.

After the 1962 telethon, The 700 Club continued as a two hour a day Christian variety program. It consisted of music, preaching, group prayer, bible study, and some talk. The music was hymns, instrumental pieces, southern gospel music, and urban gospel music. The show was run two or three times a day.

The first permanent host of the program was Jim Bakker who, along with his then-wife Tammy Faye Bakker, also hosted a children's show on WYAH called Come On Over (later retitled Jim and Tammy). The couple left CBN in 1972; reportedly Jim Bakker was fired by Pat Robertson over philosophical differences. The Bakkers then moved on to help launch the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) before starting their own television ministry and signature show, The PTL Club. After the Bakkers left, some staffers at the station reportedly responded by destroying Bakkers' sets and puppets. Pat Robertson took over as host, and evolved his 700 Club by cutting back on music and preaching and heading toward the talk show format developed by Bakker. Robertson transformed the 700 Club from a nightly religious themed telethon to a religious talk show.

The 700 Club originally aired only on WYAH-TV and other CBN-owned stations in Atlanta (WANX-TV) and Dallas (KXTX-TV), and later Boston (WXNE-TV). The program entered national syndication in 1974, as CBN purchased airtime on stations such as WPIX in New York City, KTLA in Los Angeles, WPHL-TV in Philadelphia, and WDCA in Washington, D.C., among others. The roster of stations carrying the program grew to over 100 markets by 1976. In some markets, the show aired on multiple stations, choosing between either the full 90-minute version or an edited 60-minute version. In 1977 The 700 Club received additional exposure nationally on the newly-launched CBN Cable Network where, like CBN's broadcast outlets, it aired three times daily.

1980 to the present

In 1980 The 700 Club moved its studios from WYAH's facilities in Portsmouth into CBN's then-new campus in neighboring Virginia Beach, from where the program continues to originate. During the 1980s the show evolved into more of a magazine-like format, with news/opinion and lifestyle segments interspersed with interviews.

Even after CBN sold its group of terrestrial stations later in the decade, The 700 Club continued to air on CBN Cable as well as many commercial secular stations and Christian stations nationally. In 1987 the syndicated version was cut back from 90 minutes to one hour.

CBN Cable was rebranded as The Family Channel in 1988. The Family Channel was packaged as part of a sale of International Family Entertainment to News Corporation and television producer Haim Saban in 1998. The channel was renamed Fox Family Channel, but only three years later Fox Family was sold to the Walt Disney Company and was subsequently rebranded ABC Family. The 700 Club now airs on ABC Family thrice daily, part of a contractual obligation originally made as part of the Family Channel's sale to News Corporation.

International versions of The 700 Club are Club 700 Hoy, broadcast in Latin America, and The 700 Club With Paul and Fiona, in Great Britain. Begun in October 2004, the latter is co-hosted by Paul Jones and Fiona Hendley Jones.

The Pat Robertson version also airs in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Revelation TV, Genesis TV, GOD TV, God Europe, Loveworld TV, Gospel Channel, OBE TV and KICC TV.

Philosophy

Between 1978 and 1980, discussions on current political issues became a part of the program, and news segments were added in the first 20 minutes of the show. Following Pat Robertson's lead, The 700 Club clearly endorsed a politically conservative agenda supporting Republican candidates and causes as the Christian right movement was beginning to emerge. According to Robertson, this had influence in the 1980 presidential election as well as congressional elections. It also served as the basis for Pat Robertson's candidacy for the U.S. presidency in 1988.

The 700 Club strongly supports Israel, especially in its conflicts with the Palestinians and the United Nations. Among its frequent Jewish guests are Michael Medved and Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who share its conservative Judeo-Christian beliefs.

The 700 Club Asia

The 700 Club
Genre	Religious broadcasting
Created by	CBN Asia
Directed by	Derrek Adapon
Starring	Peter Kairuz Coney Reyes Mari Kaimo
Country of origin	Philippines
Original languages	Filipino English
No. of episodes	(list of episodes)
Production
Camera setup	multi-camera set-up
Running time	30 minutes
Original release
Network	GMA Network
Release	1995 – Present

An Asian edition of the show, The 700 Club Asia, originally premiered in the Philippines in the mid-1990s on GMA 7 or Global Media Arts . It was originally produced and hosted by Pat Robertson's son, Gordon Robertson, and co-hosted by broadcaster Mari Kaimo, and Philippine TV personality Coney Reyes.

In 1998, Reyes took over as host and producer of the show, with Tricia Amper Jimenez as co-host. When Reyes left the show in 2000 for medical reasons, it was retooled as The Club, hosted by Jimenez, Peter Kairuz and Carla Martinez.

In 2001, the show reverted to its old format and moved to ABS-CBN (a network unrelated to Pat Robertson's CBN) and ABC 5 (a network unrelated to American Broadcasting Company), where it aired on its sister station, Studio 23. Kairuz remained as host with veteran singer Maria Teresa "Dulce" Llamedo-Cruz and TV personality Chat Silayan-Bailon (1959–2006), who later died of colon cancer.

In 2006, the show moved to GMA's sister station, QTV 11. Kairuz still hosts the show, with Reyes returning to co-host. The show also features Kata Inocencio, Maricel Laxa-Pangilinan, Alex Tinsay and Felichi Pangilinan-Buizon. Since QTV-11 went off the air, The show will continue airing through GMA News TV beginning March 2011.

The 700 Club in India

An Indian Hindi edition of The 700 Club, named Ek Nayee Zindagi, airs daily at 6:30 am and 1 am (repeat) on Star Plus.

Controversy

Main article: Pat Robertson controversies

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Pat Robertson claimed that the terrorist attacks were God's punishment for America's loose morals.

He also said publicly that Hurricane Katrina was a result of God's anger about abortion.

Scott Roeder, who murdered the abortion doctor George Tiller on May 31, 2009, claimed that his murderous thoughts were influenced by discussions of religion and abortion on The 700 Club.

Immediately after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Pat Robertson said that it was "what happened when people make a deal with the Devil."

The U.S. National Better Business Bureau says of the Christian Broadcasting Network and 700 Club: "...unable to verify the organization's compliance with 5 of the 20 Standards for Charity Accountability" ABC Family also airs a disclaimer before the show saying "The following program does not reflect the views of ABC Family".

External links

• The 700 Club Official Website
• The 700 Club Official Website for UK & Europe
• The 700 Club at Trinity Broadcasting Network
• The 700 Club at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com