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Jim Bakker’s PTL Club: How a Christian TV show became a 13-million-viewer media empire
Jim Bakker built the PTL Club into a Christian TV empire with 13 million daily viewers before a sex scandal and fraud conviction brought it down.
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US televangelist Jim Bakker has died at the age of 86. Bakker became famous after building a large Christian television and media empire before his career collapsed following a sex scandal and a fraud conviction.
Bakker’s biggest success was The PTL Club, a Christian television programme he started with his then-wife Tammy Faye in 1974. The show became the centre of the couple’s growing religious media business, according to BBC.
PTL Club became a huge TV hit
The PTL Club became hugely popular in the US. At its peak, the programme attracted about 13 million viewers every day, making Bakker one of the best-known televangelists in the country. PTL stood for “Praise the Lord” and was also known as “People That Love”. The programme helped cement Bakker and Tammy Faye’s fame and became the foundation of their wider media empire.
The Bakkers turned the success of PTL into a multimillion-dollar Christian media business. Their operation eventually grew to around 2,000 employees, showing how large the ministry had become. A major part of the empire was Heritage USA, a huge Christian theme park complex in Fort Mill, South Carolina. The property covered about 2,300 acres, or 930 hectares.
Bakker lived a lavish lifestyle
Bakker and Tammy Faye also became known for living a very wealthy lifestyle. Their possessions included a private jet, several homes, luxury cars and expensive jewellery. Their lavish lifestyle became especially controversial because the couple had built their wealth through their Christian ministry and television operation. One unusual luxury associated with the family was an air-conditioned dog house, according to the BBC.
Jim Bakker faced a sex scandal
The PTL empire began to collapse in the late 1980s after Bakker became involved in a sex scandal. The controversy centred on a 1980 sexual encounter with Jessica Hahn, a former church secretary. Bakker resigned from the PTL ministry in 1987 after the revelations about Hahn became public. Hahn accused Bakker of sexual assault, but he denied the accusation and said their encounter had been consensual.
Jessica Hahn received $265,000
It later emerged that Hahn had received $265,000 in a payment connected to the PTL ministry. The payment came from ministry funds and became a major part of the scandal surrounding Bakker. The scandal had serious consequences for Bakker’s religious career. He was defrocked, meaning he lost his ministerial credentials and his right to perform religious duties.
Bakker was convicted of fraud
Bakker then faced a separate legal case over money connected to the Christian theme park. In 1989, he was convicted on 24 counts of mail and wire fraud and conspiracy. Bakker was sentenced to prison and ultimately spent more than four years behind bars. The conviction marked a dramatic fall for a man who had once led one of America's biggest Christian television operations.
Tammy Faye remained with Bakker during his trial, but their marriage eventually ended. She divorced him in 1992 while he was still in prison. Tammy Faye was never charged in connection with Bakker’s criminal case. She later died from cancer in 2007, according to the BBC.
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Bakker returned to Christian TV
Bakker was released from prison in 1994. After his release, he wrote a book titled “I Was Wrong”, reflecting on his fall from power and the events surrounding his conviction. Bakker rebuilt his personal life after prison. He married his second wife, Lori Bakker, in 1998. Bakker and Lori later returned to Christian television together. The couple launched a new TV ministry in 2003, beginning another chapter in Bakker’s broadcasting career.
Jim Bakker Show returned in 2008
In 2008, the couple began taping “The Jim Bakker Show”. This gave Bakker a new platform for his Christian ministry years after the collapse of the original PTL empire. Bakker’s death was announced on Monday by Lori Bakker. She described him as “a pioneer of Christian television” and said he had been her best friend and someone she was honoured to walk beside through many years of life and ministry, according to the BBC.
Lori did not give a cause of death. Bakker was 86 years old when he died. Bakker’s career therefore had two very different phases. The PTL Club made him a major television figure, with millions of daily viewers and a huge Christian media operation, but the sex scandal and fraud conviction later brought that empire down.
The story of the PTL Club is ultimately the story of how Christian television became a powerful media business. What began as a religious TV programme in 1974 grew into a multimillion-dollar operation with thousands of employees, a massive theme park and millions of daily viewers before Bakker’s scandals and criminal conviction ended his first media empire.
