Interesting essay on the role of American regulations in shaping the development of religious broadcasting. Argues for an essential link between broadcast ministries and end-times theology but doesn’t theorize it much.

Just rolling it over in my head, I can see the unidirectional one-to-many format of broadcasting being better suited to jeremiads or prophecy than, say, pastoral work. I’d still like to see numbers on the business model though.

Like, how did Jimmy Swaggart compare with his half-century predecessor Sister Aimee in terms of income sources and expenditures? (When I included the Foursquare Church with Scientology and Pentecostalism as religious innovations from Los Angeles, I’m talking not of theology but the “media spectacle” approach, and would rope in things like the Crystal Cathedral).