The Great Commission.

Christians from the beginning were committed to using all means to carry out the Great Commission of Jesus, to go to all the world and preach the gospel. When electronic communication systems were developed in the twentieth century, preachers used the radio and then television to broadcast their good news. While Charles Fuller's Old Time Gospel Hour did not make the transition from radio to television, such successors as Billy Graham quickly recognized the potential of the new medium. The pattern set by Graham and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in the 1950s dominated religion on television for nearly twenty years.

Governmental Incentive.

In the 1960s evangelists began to adapt to the potential of television. When the Federal Communications Commission ruled that stations did not have to provide free time for community service, including religion, television companies began to sell their religious time...