Private company

Trinity Broadcasting Network

Logo: Trinity Broadcasting Network, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons³

International Christian television network (1973–present)

The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN; legally Trinity Broadcasting of Texas, Inc.) is an international Christian-based broadcast television network and the world's largest religious television network. TBN solicits donations on its website as cash, vehicles, or legacies. TBN was headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, until March 3, 2017, when it sold its office park, Trinity Christian City, retaining its studios in nearby Tustin.² Its revenue was $80.4 million in 2023.¹ Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1973Founded¹

HeadquartersCosta Mesa¹
Websitewww.tbn.org
Legal form501(c)(3) organization¹

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The story

History

The Trinity Broadcasting Network was co-founded as the Trinity Broadcasting Systems in 1973 by Paul Crouch, an Assemblies of God minister, and his spouse Jan Crouch. TBN began its broadcasting activities by renting time on the independent station KBSA (now UniMás owned-and-operated station KFTR-DT) in Ontario, California. After that station was sold, he began buying two hours a day of programming time on KLXA-TV in Fontana, California, in early 1974. That station was put up for sale shortly afterward. Paul Crouch then placed a bid to buy the station for $1 million and raised $100,000 for a down payment. After many struggles, the Crouches managed to raise the down payment and took over the station outright, with the station becoming KTBN-TV in 1977 and its city of license being reassigned to TBN's original homebase, Santa Ana, in 1983.

Initially, the station ran Christian programs for about six hours a day, expanding its programming to 12 hours a day by 1975, and began selling time to other Christian organizations to supplement its local programming. The station eventually instituted a 24-hour schedule in 1978.

The fledgling network was so weak in its first days, that, according to Crouch in his autobiography, Hello World!, it almost went bankrupt after just two days on the air. TBN began national distribution through cable television providers in 1978. The ministry, which became known as the Trinity Broadcasting Network, gained national distribution via communications satellite in 1982. The network was a member of the National Religious Broadcasters association until 1990.

In 1977, the ministry purchased KPAZ-TV in Phoenix, Arizona, becoming its second television station property. During the 1980s and 1990s, TBN purchased additional independent television stations and signed on new stations around the United States; the purchase of the existing stations was done in order to gain cable carriage, due to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s must-carry rules. TBN's availability eventually expanded to 95% of American households by early 2005.

Smile of a Child Foundation

The Smile of a Child Foundation is a compassion-focused ministry, founded in 2005 by TBN co-founder Jan Crouch initially as a vehicle to reach the children of Haiti, providing food, medical care, toys and disaster relief to people in need. Crouch has over 20 years of personal involvement with the island country, having established a children's hospital, an orphanage and a school in Haiti. TBN spent millions in donations and other funding on these humanitarian projects.

Following the January 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake, TBN made immediate contributions of $100,000 through Lake Charles, Louisiana-based Friend Ships, which speeds emergency relief aid and medical expertise all over the world in its fleet of dedicated cargo/ministry ships. Friend Ships has been partnering with TBN and Smile since 1992; Paul Crouch personally donated a Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopter to the humanitarian organization.

In May 2009, the United Nations officially recommended the Smile of a Child Foundation to receive special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council for the Democracy Coalition Project.

From Wikipedia’s article on Trinity Broadcasting Network, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.⁴

Revenue over time

As stated on Wikidata, in the currency reported.

Revenue

Trinity Broadcasting Network revenue by year¹$80.4M in 2023−34% since 2014

2023$80.4M¹
2022$73.5M¹
2021$121.0M¹
2020$75.9M¹
2019$81.5M¹
2018$137.4M¹

Controversies and legal

Criticisms and incidents

Theology

The Trinity Broadcasting Network had previously come under heavy criticism for its promotion of the prosperity gospel, teaching viewers that they will receive a reward if they donate or give offerings. In a 2004 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Paul Crouch, Jr. expressed his disappointment that "the prosperity gospel is a lightning rod for the Body of Christ. It's not what drives TBN." Under leadership of Matt Crouch, TBN no longer adheres to or practices that theology, and programming changes such as removing Kenneth Copeland reflect that shift.

TBN has always broadcast programming featuring Protestant pastors who do not promote the prosperity gospel, such as Charles Stanley, Jack Graham, Franklin Graham, Billy Graham, Michael Youssef, David Jeremiah and Robert Jeffress.

Scholar Steve Snow states that TBN "regularly promotes the teachings of the New Apostolic Reformation", which he argues "represents what Richard Hofstadter referred to as the modern paranoid style in American politics".

Wealth and transparency

TBN is a 501(c)(3) non-profit company. Full disclosure of TBN's financial statements have been evaluated by Charity Navigator, the largest evaluator of charities and non-profit companies in the U.S. TBN has received a three out of four star rating for four consecutive years, and in 2009 earned a rating of two out of four stars due to a 2% increase in administrative costs in 2009; the report also revealed that for the fiscal year ending December 2009, TBN president Paul Crouch, Sr. earned $419,500; co-vice president Jan Crouch earned $361,000; and co-vice president Paul Crouch, Jr. earned $214,137. TBN is currently under Donor Advisory status with Charity Navigator.

Another charity watchdog group, Ministry Watch, gave TBN an "F" in 2011 for its failure to provide financial statements, lack of timeliness in responding to correspondence, and its lack of clarity in the provided information. As a result, TBN was placed on the group's alert list annually since 2009.

TBN's annual financial information is monitored by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where it is ranked 243 out of the top 400 non-profit corporations in the United States. TBN is not a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

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In 2011, Paul Crouch, Jr. resigned from his position as co-vice president on TBN. On November 10 of that year, Crouch, Jr. joined The Word Network as its Director of Project Development.

In February 2012, Brittany Koper, TBN's former Director of Finance (and the daughter of Paul Crouch Jr.), filed a lawsuit against her former attorneys, Davert & Loe. The three counts of the complaint were for breach of fiduciary duties, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and professional negligence. In this lawsuit, Koper alleged that TBN unlawfully distributed over $50 million to the ministry's directors. Koper filed the suit following the termination of her employment with TBN. Davert & Loe, who also represented TBN, denied her claims. Koper's suit against Davert & Loe is pending; no official judicial ruling has been made in this matter. In a May 2012 interview with The New York Times, Koper claimed, "My job as finance director was to find ways to label extravagant personal spending as ministry expenses." Koper alleged that the network had herself and chauffeurs and sound engineers ordained as ministers in order to avoid paying Social Security taxes on their salaries. Brittany Koper said in a 2015 lawsuit that she was threatened with a firearm and dismissed on refusing to illegally transfer US$100 million of charitable assets to TBN directors' personal accounts.

Lawsuits

In September 2004, the Los Angeles Times reported that Paul Crouch had paid former TBN employee Enoch Lonnie Ford a $425,000 formal settlement to end a wrongful termination lawsuit in 1998. Ford alleged that he and Crouch had a homosexual tryst during his employment with the ministry. TBN officials acknowledged the settlement but contested Ford's credibility, noting that he had previously been convicted for child molestation and drug abuse. In 1996, Ford was fired by TBN after he was arrested for drug-related offenses and returned to prison for a year. Ford allegedly threatened to sue TBN for wrongful termination and sexual harassment after the network refused to hire him following his release, resulting in his claims against Crouch. TBN officials stated that the settlement was made in order to avoid a lengthy and expensive lawsuit.

In late 2003, Ford attempted to extort Crouch, threatening to release an autobiographical manuscript of their alleged affair if TBN did not purchase the document for $10 million. In October 2004, Judge Robert J. O'Neill awarded Crouch $136,000 in legal fees to be paid by Ford for his violation of the terms of the settlement agreement, specifically the prohibition of discussing the details of the settlement. On March 15, 2005, Ford appeared on the PAX TV reality series Lie Detector to be given a polygraph test; the results of the test were never broadcast or made public.

In June 2012, the Orange County Register reported that Carra Crouch, a granddaughter of Paul and Jan Crouch, alleged in a lawsuit that she had been raped by a TBN employee when she was 13 years old. Carra claimed to have been sexually abused while staying at an Atlanta hotel during TBN's "Spring Praise-a-Thon" in 2006. She also claimed that Jan Crouch and TBN attorney John Casoria blamed her for the incident, yet agreed not to turn the fired employee in to authorities if he did not file for unemployment, worker's comp or EEOC benefits. TBN attorney Colby May "vehemently denied" Carra's claims. In 2017, a year after Jan Crouch's death, a jury awarded Carra $2 million in damages for "mental suffering", but found that Jan had not been acting as a "Trinity Clergy Member" and therefore wasn't legally required to report the assault.

Pre-emption of programs due to criticism of other religions

Bible prophecy scholar Hal Lindsey's program International Intelligence Briefing, which occasionally aired commentary segments criticizing Muslims and Islam, aired on TBN from 1994 to 2005. In December 2005, TBN pre-empted the program for the entire month. Lindsey accused the network of censorship, saying, "some at the network apparently feel that my message is too pro-Israel and too anti-Muslim." Paul Crouch issued a press release stating that the show was only pre-empted for Christmas programming, but eventually admitted that TBN management was concerned that Lindsey "placed Arabs in a negative light." Lindsey resigned from TBN on January 1, 2006, effectively canceling International Intelligence Briefing. However, one year later, Crouch and Lindsey reconciled and a new program, The Hal Lindsey Report, premiered on the network.

In June 2011, TBN refused to rebroadcast an episode of Jack Van Impe's weekly program Jack Van Impe Presents, in which the evangelist criticized pastors Rick Warren and Robert Schuller for participating in interfaith conferences alongside Muslim leaders. Both Warren and Schuller denied the accusations. Paul Crouch defended TBN's decision, stating that it was against network policy for personalities to attack each other on-air (Schuller had a regular show on TBN). As a result, Jack Van Impe Ministries announced that it would no longer air Van Impe's program on TBN.

Travel the Road in Afghanistan

TBN produces and airs the Christian reality show Travel the Road, which features missionaries Tim Scott and Will Decker in remote and often war-torn locations. In December 2008, the program attracted criticism from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a watchdog group that looks for religious discrimination in the United States military, which claimed that Scott and Decker were embedded with U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan. According to MRFF president Mikey Weinstein, the military exercises a "complete prohibition of the proselytizing of any religion, faith, or practice...You see [Scott and Decker] wearing American helmets. It is obvious they were completely embedded." When ABC News contacted the U.S. Army in Afghanistan about Scott and Decker's alleged embed, which had taken place four years previously, they said that they no longer had the documentation of the missionaries' status with the troops.

Scott defended the trip to Afghanistan, telling ABC, "It wasn't like we were hiding in the back saying we're going to preach. [The military] knew what we were doing. We told them that we were born again Christians, we're here doing ministry, we shoot for this TV station and we want to embed and see what it was like. We were interviewing the chaplains and we talked to them. We spoke at the services and things like that. So we did do our mission being over there as far as being able to document what the soldiers go through, what it's like in Afghanistan. So I could say that we were on a secular mission as well as far as documenting. I would say we were news reporters as well, we were delivering news of what was actually happening there, but we were also there to document the Christian side." Scott argued that since the pair were acting as Christian journalists, they had the same right to cover the war in Afghanistan as secular networks.