Determined to continue her broadcasting efforts, she began making plans to convert a garage behind her Irondale monastery, Our Lady of the Angels, into a television studio.īy 1980, the television studio was fully operational, and prerecorded programs began airing on local commercial stations as well as nationally on CBN. Mother Angelica ended the arrangement, however, after CBS ran a controversial miniseries challenging the divinity of Jesus. She then leased the services and staff of a local CBS affiliate to produce the show. To meet the demand, Mother Angelica sought fundraising help from the Catholic Family Missionary Alliance. Recognizing a good opportunity to supplement their otherwise all-Protestant lineup, CBN executives ordered 60 additional taped episodes. Mother Angelica recorded her first half-hour production, titled Our Hermitage, on April 28, 1978, and sold it to the fledgling Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). She found help with the technical aspects of broadcasting from a friend who owned a sound studio and another who had some camera experience.
Her friend and attorney, Bill Steltemeier, secured initial financing of the plan by providing a large private donation.
Lacking a broadcast studio, Mother Angelica had to start from scratch. She returned to Birmingham determined to use television as a medium for reaching a wider audience with her religious lectures. On a trip to Chicago in 1978, Mother Angelica visited a Baptist-run television station and saw the potential of satellite broadcasting for reaching people with her version of Christianity. Additionally, the channel is available online an through various streaming services.ĮWTN’s success is due largely to the efforts of its founder, Mother Angelica (Rita Antoinette Rizzo), a Franciscan nun originally from Canton, Ohio. Today, EWTN broadcasts around the world with programming available 24 hours a day, seven days a week in approximately 140 countries and territories. Headquartered just outside of Birmingham, in the city of Irondale, the network incorporated in 1981 as a small enterprise transmitting just four hours a day and reaching only 60,000 homes. The Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) is an international broadcasting corporation that provides religious programming on Catholic theology and devotion.
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