1930-
Televangelist;
Founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network

Background.

In 1960 Marion ("Pat") Robertson, son of a U.S. senator from Virginia and graduate of Yale Law School, purchased a UHF television station in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He had gone through a religious experience that led him to the New York Theological Seminary and showed him how, as he explained, he was ready to carry out God's order to begin a religious television ministry. His original audience was small. Not only did the signals of UHF stations have a limited range, only recently had television manufacturers been forced to make sets that could receive their signals. Robertson struggled in his early years. At a low point he asked for seven hundred listeners to join his ministry by contributing ten dollars a month to keep his station on the air. The response of what he called his "faith...