A potential Southern California foothold for a rival televangelist isn’t putting the fear of God into Costa Mesa-based Trinity Broadcasting Network.
Trinity, which bills itself as America’s most watched religious network, last month saw rival Daystar Television Network of Dallas strike a deal with public TV station KOCE.
Terms of the deal, which settled litigation over ownership of KOCE, aren’t being discussed by either side. But they’re widely believed to allow Daystar use of one of the four digital channels KOCE operates.
Daystar is the No. 2 religious broadcaster, available in 50 million homes. It had sought to buy all of KOCE in 2003 to gain operations in Southern California.
Daystar declined to comment for this story other than to say it’s happy with its settlement with KOCE, according to lawyer Richard Sherman of Beverly Hills-based Sherman & Nathanson.
A Trinity spokesman dismissed competition from Daystar.
“They say they’re No. 2, but the difference between one and two is like the difference between the U.S. and Haiti,” said John Casoria, a lawyer for Trinity.
Trinity, which shows Pat Robertson’s “700 Club” and features faith healer Benny Hinn, isn’t just a big religious broadcaster. It’s the seventh largest U.S. broadcaster of any kind, according to Trinity.
Its programming is available to 92 million homes.
Paul Crouch, Jan Crouch, Jim Bakker and Tammy Bakker founded Trinity 35 years ago on rented airtime on a UHF station in Santa Ana. Southern California remains Trinity’s biggest market.
In markets where Trinity and Daystar compete, Casoria said Trinity has never seen its number of viewers drop after Daystar has entered.
“Daystar follows us around, but there’s no impact to us,” Casoria said.
Trinity had $200 million in revenue in 2005, the latest year it filed with the Internal Revenue Service.
Despite Trinity’s size, Casoria insisted it’s a church more than a business.
“We’ll take a loss in some markets, but it’s not what we’re focused on,” he said.
About 70% of Trinity’s revenue comes from donations, with the remaining coming from an investment portfolio and sharing airtime.
Daystar isn’t likely to be going head to head with Trinity in Southern California.
If speculation about the settlement is correct, Daystar will get access to the local airwaves. But only those viewers getting digital signals from an antenna are likely to see Daystar’s local broadcasts.
Most digital TV watchers get their signals from cable and satellite, which are required to carry KOCE’s main public TV broadcast but not its other digital transmissions.
That’s why Daystar wanted all of KOCE and in 2003 offered $25 million for the station and then upped its offer to $40 million.
It lost out to the KOCE Foundation, which prevailed with a $32 million bid, of which $8 million was cash and the rest credit.
Daystar sued contending it should have prevailed as the highest bidder.
Both sides were worn down over the dispute, said KOCE Foundation lawyer Mark Yocca of Yocca Law Firm LLP in Irvine.
“Everybody had each other in a death grip,” he said.
