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From Airtime Advocacy to an Industry Standard Setter

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From Airtime Advocacy to an Industry Standard Setter

Having secured evangelical broadcasters' access to purchased airtime, the National Religious Broadcasters shifted over the following decades from a defensive advocacy campaign into an ongoing trade association: an annual convention, a network of member ministries and broadcasters, and a standing effort to promote financial accountability and integrity across an industry the association itself had helped bring into existence.

That standard setting role gained visible urgency after the televangelism scandals that followed, from the PTL fraud conviction to the Senate Finance Committee's 2007 to 2011 inquiry into several prosperity preaching ministries. Member accountability, transparency about ministry finances, and public trust in religious broadcasting became recurring themes of the association's advocacy in a way the original 1944 founders, focused on simply staying on the air at all, could not have anticipated.

The National Religious Broadcasters continues to operate today as the principal trade association for Christian broadcasters in the United States, holding its annual convention, engaging federal media policy on behalf of its members, and tracing its own institutional identity directly back to the 150 broadcasters who met at Moody Memorial Church in 1944 to keep evangelical voices on the American airwaves.

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Our History (National Religious Broadcasters)
National Religious Broadcasters, National Religious Broadcasters, 2026later roleView the Source
National Religious Broadcasters (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia, 2026View the Source
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