Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders have unveiled Adventist Television Network (ATN), a restructured organization that will coordinate the efforts of the church's satellite television ministries around the world.
Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders have unveiled Adventist Television Network (ATN), a restructured organization that will coordinate the efforts of the church’s satellite television ministries around the world.
“The church’s satellite networks can and should play an even more significant role in front-line evangelism—and this is what Adventist Television Network is all about,” said Ted N.C. Wilson, a vice president of the world church and chair of the taskforce charged with setting up the organization.
The Adventist Church worldwide currently has more than 13,000 satellite downlink sites, located mainly at local churches. These sites represent an estimated $80 million in combined assets.
Since 1995, Adventist Global Communication Network (AGCN) has been the official broadcast organization of the Adventist Church. It has provided global coverage of occasional church events, such as evangelistic series, ministerial education seminars, and world church meetings.
Adventist Television Network, which has absorbed ACGN, “will span the globe, providing a regularly updated program line-up,” Wilson told members of the church’s executive committee September 26.
In the coming months, the ATN taskforce will begin working toward a number of objectives that, according to Wilson, have the potential to dramatically expand the scope of the church’s satellite ministry.
ATN will move toward producing between 1 and 2½ hours of unique programming content every week. Brad Thorp, director of ATN, and formerly director of AGCN, has proposed the weekly line-up could include seminars, a Sabbath School lesson, church news and information, and regular features focusing on different ministries, including youth, children, health and women’s issues.
Currently, AGCN produces no regular weekly programs, uplinking only special events and one-time programs.
The taskforce will also consider how ATN can move to 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week programming. At the same time, the group will explore the possibility of distributing ATN to private homes around the world, in addition to the existing church-based downlink sites.
“These are essential steps if we are going to fully utilize the church’s satellite capabilities,” said Wilson.
The taskforce will report on its progress at the next meeting of the church’s executive committee in April 2002.
