PTL Satellite Network

The PTL Television Network – often referred to as simply PTL – was a global evangelical Christian television network based in Fort Mill, South Carolina, founded by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker in 1974. PTL Satellite Network was dedicated in April 1977. During PTL's fourteen-year history, the Bakkers, as hosts of the network's flagship talk show, The PTL Club, became two of the most recognizable and highly rated televangelists in the United States. However, the PTL ministry would collapse in 1987, after a former church secretary, Jessica Hahn, accused the evangelist of rape, and later financial scandals purported that the couple had used the non-profit PTL's donations to fund an opulent personal lifestyle. Bakker would be sent to prison for embezzlement in 1989.